


Armed With Death

by Euregatto-Archived (Euregatto)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Demons, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-11-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 17:46:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12822774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Euregatto/pseuds/Euregatto-Archived
Summary: "I'm sorry," she says, sliding her serrated knife along her tongue, "but Hange isn't here right now. And you, Corporal Levi, are going to die."An AU of the mission outside the wall, and the events leading up to it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> an abandoned work that's been moved and archived here as per request.

_"Are you going on another mission, Zoe?"_

The silence in the room shifts awkwardly as the words fall complacently from her chest. Her fingernails drum to an off-beat tempo against her thigh, staining her pants with blood dripping in rivulets from the jagged, painless gash in her arm. She peers into the horrid reflection staring back at her, the familiar conjures of her lips turned upwards into a jeering, maniacal smirk.

"That's none of your concern," she responds after a moment, lifting the blade shard to her forearm.

_"Are you going to kill again? Or should I be the one doing it for you?"_

A tremor racks her body, an intense shiver that tingles her brain and clouds her vision with an overwhelming darkness. She reflexively slides the edge of the serrated fragment across the porcelain canvas of her skin. Warmth blossoms through her torso and leaks down her swelling skin; she regains her consciousness again.

_"Won't you let me take a turn? Just this once?"_

"No!" She barks at the mirror and the expression in the scratched surface of the glass falls blank.  _I'm an absolute mess_. She brings her sticky hand up to the right side of her face, sliding her palm down, smearing her own blood across her brow, eye and cheek.  _That's better._ "No," she repeats again, gentler this time, "I will not allow it…"

_"But you like your insanity…"_

"I love being insane," she agrees quietly, and suddenly, without warning, she  _screams_. Her voice pierces the veil of quiet that has settled throughout the room, pitch gradually rising louder and louder until it becomes deafening to her own ears. She drives the broken sword through the face in the mirror and a spider web of shattered lines explodes outwards, dropping shards harmlessly to the floor.

She picks one up, the exposed flesh of her fingers tearing against the rigid edges.

_"End it then. If you can't handle what has been bestowed upon you at birth, then you should just end it…"_

"You're right," she utters, pressing the tip to her throat. "It won't hurt, right?"

_"Of course not."_

A foreign hand clutches her wrist and she stills as a familiar body brushes hers. "What the fuck are you doing, Four Eyes? This is the second time this damn month." The figure tosses the glass back into the pile, his grip still on her hand. "Are you even aware how annoying you are? We could hear you all the way from the dining hall. You scared some of the rookies shitless."

She hums in her throat. " _Levi_ …"

"Shitty Glasses," he dead-pans.

"Doesn't it feel amazing?" She inquires, turning to face him so her bloodied lips are near to his. The heavy scent of copper poisons his senses but his expression remains blank. "Doesn't killing feel so amazing,  _Levi?"_

He doesn't get to answer her because she's occupying his mouth with hers already, tongue wrapping around his, hands shaking as they travel up under his shirt. She tastes bitter and smells metallic and her clothes are soaked with her own body fluids –  _fucking disgusting,_ he thinks luridly. His hand comes up to push her away by the clean side of her face. "Knock it off," he hisses, starting for the door with her in tow. "Let's get your shitty wounds closed before you bleed to death and do us all a favor."

"Why?" She mutters, "Why should I when it's just so…beautiful…" She lifts her arm to her unfurling tongue, lapping at the bitter wounds. "And it tastes like life…"

"A life you're about to lose if you don't come-the fuck-on." He lets her go when they exit into the corridor, moving to wipe the slick blood stains from his hands with the handkerchief in his pocket. "Shit, you're making such a mess…"

Hange purrs from behind him, but her voice isn't directed at him so much as it is the ceiling. "I want to dissect something…won't you be my subject?"

"No," he denies abruptly, "get yourself in fucking check before I'm forced to snap your neck."

She chuckles in her chest, garnet orbs flashing grimly behind her glasses. "Be gentle, won't you?"

"I'll make it quick, how's that?" Sarcastic, as always.

The slender edge of a dagger suddenly slides along the length of his neck with a metallic hiss, harmless and cold to the touch. She leans her lips to his ear. "You know… the urge to kill has become so strong…" She plants a chaste kiss against the crook of his shoulder. "What if I killed you, right now? Just drove this blade straight into your throat? Or, better yet, cut you open"—she glides down his chest—"from here"—it stops just above his belt line—"to here?"

Levi grunts, slapping the blade away. "Go dissect your fucking Titans. And control yourself already, I don't need you corroding and analyzing some poor bastard's organs when I have my back turned."

"But you'd be so much more fun." The dagger reflexively digs into her arm and she gasps, white noise brimming in her skull. "F- _uck_! Shit that hurts!"

"Maybe you should have better control."

"Fair enough," she utters, massaging her forehead, hands shaking. "I was starting to black out again." She tucks the bloodied dagger into her belt and grips the oozing gash trailing from her wrist to the crook of her elbow. "Stitches. I'm going to need stitches. Lots of stitches. And don't tell Erwin, please."

"I never do," he replies reassuringly, guiding her down the hall. His fists quake uncontrollably. "You know I never do."

 

* * *

 

 

Levi can't remember the last time his hands have shaken so intensely – not since his very first mission years before, when he was Eren's age and still just as obsessively compulsive about cleanliness as now. They still shake sometimes.

He remembers how his heart drummed against the cage of his chest, the way the swords quivered in his hands, and the disturbing look in Hange Zoe's garnet eyes as they realized that everyone in their squad was dead except for them, and low and behold nine Titans were sauntering towards them. It was the first time Hange  _broke_ and he doesn't want that to happen again. Back then is just like now, though, but not all of their squad is Titan food right away. Hange, however, still has that disturbing look in her eyes.

 _Bloodlust,_ he tells himself, counting off three 15-meter-class Titans to his left and one 18-meter-class to his right, and five more of various sizes within the proximity of his rear.  _And intrigue. Desperation. Revenge. Just like all those years ago…_ He notices that she's watching them carefully as well.  _Let's try not to repeat that incident, shall we, Hange?_

Hange allows a maniacal smile to etch its way into her normally elegant features. "This is awesome! Which one should I go after first? Oh, never mind, I want the really big one!" She playfully pokes Levi in his ribs with her elbow, although it kind of hurts because she's far too excited for self-control.  _Control_ , on the other hand, is Levi's middle name, coupled with  _irritable._ "Let's go, Levi!"

He sighs under his breath as she leaps off, swinging around on her 3-Dimensional Gear like it's a toy.  _This was supposed to be a simple fucking mission,_ he thinks again, studying her swift movements out of the corner of his eye. At least she's not in the mood for a full-blown slaughter house.  _So why the hell can't I shake this ominous feeling?_ Growling in his throat, he shoots off and slays the closest Titan to him, which, unfortunately, doesn't calm the storm within him.

The strange emotions welling in his torso are annoying him as intensely as they are scaring him, something he's felt since she threatened to dissect him last week. Which is why he's so afraid of absolutely nothing…but the more he dwells on it the less he cares, because in the end the only thing to truly be afraid of is losing to the Titans.

Losing what though, Levi isn't sure he wants to know, but he's certain he's going to find out sooner or later.

He swings around and slices into the second Titan, which reminds him of the one he saw back in his childhood – when a Titan had climbed over the wall the day the Garrison squads were spread thin – that had, subsequently, killed his family. Mother was squashed beneath its foot, Father devoured in two bites, Sister crushed beneath the collapsing house and through it all he can't remember their faces or voices because he was only six at the time, but he sees them in his dreams, silhouettes against the darkness closing in. And he  _certainly_  hears them scream.

He takes down another two Titans, one half the size of the other that almost takes off his leg when he aims for the bigger one, before doing a headcount of his squad. Three missing, Eren Yeager seven yards to the North-West of him, Mikasa Ackerman another forty in the opposite direction.  _Now where the fuck is Shit-for-Brains Zoe?_

**_"CAPTAIN!"_ **

Eren is naturally boisterous, so his shout is recognizable even from several buildings away. Levi glances at him but he points to somewhere ahead of them, arm shaking from adrenaline and fear – but the fear isn't because of the Titans. It's because – when Levi dares to look – there's Hange, struggling in a Titan's grasp as it moves her closer to its gaping jaws. It had probably come out of an alleyway when her back was turned (a kind of attack that is responsible for twenty percent of their casualties).

_Of-fucking-course._

"Shit!" Levi hisses, darting across the roof.

Levi swings between the buildings to waste less gas and speed up faster, gear grinding against the cobblestone walkways as he descends on an arc and shoots up into the sky. Eren maneuvers around him, slicing down the smaller Titans that launch up to grab them. Levi can see the Titan that has Hange now – but she's looking away, eyes corkscrewed shut and her body rigid in its grip.  _Oh no._

He gives little regard for his gas now and rockets up to meet them, severing the Titan's wrists from its arms just as Eren carves a chunk out of its neck. Levi grabs Hange and guides them to the nearest building top, but one-handed flying isn't exactly a walk in the park and they slam into the roof at a good fifty miles an hour, Levi holding her close and using his back as a cushion upon impact. Pain derails his thoughts –  _protect her protect her **protect her**_  – as his ribs crack against the force, knocking the wind out of him and throwing his whole world into a momentary darkness.

He blinks the blackness in his vision away, soldiering through the searing pain in his chest, focused on Hange and  _only_  Hange. She stirs in his arms. "L-Levi…" She's not hurt at least, but she is shaking again his chest, nails biting into the thin fabric of his shirt. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I should've been more careful – I should've –  _I can feel her again_."

Levi struggles to sit up, but he grits his teeth to hold back any pained sounds, even though his body is screaming. "Are you OK?"

"No, no I'm not I'm not I'm not I'm no-!"

His hand finds her cheek, stilling her. She suddenly digs her finger tips into his chest and he knows why – she's fighting back what she had countless times before, the first incident back on their first mission, after she had been pushed passed her limit (which, contrary to popular belief, doesn't take much) and came down from her high. He doesn't want to relive that. And neither does she. Fortunately, she also hasn't been so close to death since  _then_ , but if he had been only seven seconds later – maybe even two – saving her wouldn't have been an option.

She bites into her lips. "I can _feel_ her, Levi.  _She's talking to me_."

Levi opens his mouth to say something – anything – to calm her down, same as he did last week, when a shadow engulfs them, rising up before them like a snake preparing to strike. The Titan stares down at them as they stare up at it. "Shit," Levi utters. "Let's go!" When he glances at her she's still as a statue, cold, void of emotion, and garnet eyes glazed over with darkness. He grabs her by her collar. "Four Eyes! Look at me!  ** _HANGE!"_**

Her lips press into a thin line and her world goes blank, void of noise and blurring her surroundings. There is only her and  _it_.

_Fuck._

He grabs her by her waist but she's faster, shooting her gear into the monster's eyes so it rears back, howling about the sudden blindness. Hange zip-lines up to its skull, unsheathing her swords, and launches up, crossing her arms and ripping out the flesh at the top of its spine. Levi prays that she isn't insane, that she is still Hange and that they aren't repeating what happened almost ten years ago. But when the body falls away from his vision she is there, bloodlust even more intense and an ugly, twisted smirk on her face. The shark has smelt the blood. There is no going back.

"Hey!" He calls out and she glances at him, twisted smirk pulling taught on her lips. "…Hange?"

"Long time no see Levi," she returns, relishing in the way his eyes narrow dangerously, "I'd love to stay and chat – maybe even cut you open – but it seems you're all in a bit of a jam. Ta-ta~!"

She swings off like a dart, a speeding blur that Levi can't follow, but he tries. He gets up and starts after her, unsure where he is going exactly, but the pain in his body is overwhelming – and the next thing he knows one of his lines is _cut_ and he's grinding against the ground, rolling to a stop by connecting his skull with a wall, and putting up a futile fight against the shadows creeping into his vision like spiders. 

His consciousness leaves him just as quickly as he had lost Hange ten years ago.

_Hange…_

"Captain! Hey, wake up!"

Levi doesn't register the tone of the voice at first, so he doesn't know who it is, and he can't see anything no matter how many times he blinks, so that isn't an option. He feels the pressuring aches in his chest intensify as the unidentifiable figure helps him up, hooking his arm around its neck. His mouth is dry so he tries his best to wet it and make a remark – or even a sound, for that matter. "Wh-where…?"

"You're alright," the figure says, still monotone and mysterious. "Petra, get his other side."

His other arm is wound around another figure's neck. "Hang in there; you aren't far from the meet up point."

He wants to observe the obvious destruction around him (no mission involving Titans ever leaves an area unharmed) but everything is swallowed by an abyssal darkness that is gradually scattering to form his reality. He groans as the pain returns to him, and then he realizes who he's with, judging by the height and build – one, Petra, as the other had said, and two is Auruo.

Then his memories come back to him, bit by bit, falling into place like pieces of a puzzle… assuming the puzzle was patterned with Titans, blood, corpses and his squad slaying everything in sight. Then it hits him. "Sh-shit! Where's that fucking four-eyed freak?!"

"She went on a killing spree," Petra answers calmly, hoping to keep Levi from thrashing too much. "Erwin tried to calm her down because she was spewing out random statements about killing him."

"We found her about ten minutes ago stabbing an already dead Titan with her broken swords," Auruo finishes for her, "we tried talking some sense into her, which only ended with me getting a nice cut in my eyebrow from just barely avoiding her attack." Levi can feel him passively shrug. "She doesn't seem right in the head, so we're leaving her alone for now. Erd thinks she breached her limit."

"Take me to her."

Petra and Auruo exchange similar expressions along the lines of 'is that a good idea?', but they know there is no arguing with him. They reluctantly drag him down five long, seemingly endless streets until they hit the meeting point; the familiar scent of horses fills his nostrils and they prop him up against the nearby wall. "We'll be back soon," Petra assures him and takes her teammate by his sleeve. "C'mon, let's go help with clean up."

He listens intently as they shuffle off and disappear around the corner. To his side he senses the anxious shifting of another person; he knows it's Hange by the way she reflexively moves to sit beside him, almost apologetically. "Are you OK?" He asks before she can say anything, adjusting himself against the wall so he isn't putting so much weight onto his chest and isn't bent so awkwardly.

"Physically, yes. Mentally, no. Emotionally, definitely not."

He finds her side and leans against her shoulder to reduce the pain on one half of his body. She smells like blood, vanilla, and sweat, typical of someone who's been in the field for so long (minus the vanilla. He would be the laughing stock of the squad if anyone told him he smelt like anything other than hard work and swelling pride).  _Absolutely filthy…_  "You're a shitastic soldier, you know that right?"

She sighs under her breath. "Yeah…"

"Good. And now that we've established this… I'm not exactly any better." She glances at him, but he doesn't notice because he's too visually impaired at the moment, so she settles again and allows him to continue without interruption. "I couldn't do anything to stop you from repeating what occurred ten years ago. I'll take the fall for that; kind of broke my promise when I said I wouldn't let it happen ever again."

Hange clutches her arms with opposing hands. "I… I couldn't help it. The fear and the desire to kill were just  _consuming_  me. I'm so sorry, Levi." She turns her innocent carmine gaze to him. "It's hard to control her… do you think this might be because-?"

"Shut the fuck up." He winces at the tone he uses and becomes aware – by the way she whimpers like a startled, scolded puppy – that she's uncomfortable, guilty, and nervous again. "You're not your father," he continues, gentler this time, "so don't blame him for this. You are  _nothing_  like him and you will  _never_  be him. Take responsibility for your own actions and grow the fuck up." There was no need to sugar coat it, and she knows this, but she still bites back a sob and curls up, wishing the wall could swallow her forever. Sighing he adds, "Grown-ups don't cry, you know."

"I know," she concedes, touching the scars beneath her sleeve. "I'm sorry."

"And stop apologizing before I make you Titan bait."

"Wouldn't be the first time."

He doesn't like how she brings up flashbacks of their first mission so abruptly, but it is what it is and he can only resort to shaking them from his mind or – in case they are particularly overwhelming and it becomes increasingly more difficult to wipe the imaginary blood from his hands and from his face – pushing them into the farthest corner of his brain before changing the subject. "I think there might be one Titan still left around here in need of being captured."

Her cerise eyes widen and a smile returns to its rightful place on her lips. "And I have the perfect name for it too!" She leaps up and sprints off to find Eren or Mikasa or the new guy on the squad or some of the other Corps officers in the area screaming out something along the lines of "ELROY! KEEP ELROY ALIVE!" and Levi can only cradle his throbbing head and be thankful she didn't see the blood pooling from the break in his arm or the anxiety in his obsidian gaze.

He leans back and allows the rumbling of falling Titans to loll him into a much needed sleep.

  


	2. Chapter 2

Levi has to admit – he may have spent 10 years in the field, slaying Titans and coping with those who died around him or even right in front of his eyes (with all the blood and screaming that just won't  _stop_ ), but  _this_  is the most intense pain he's ever experienced. His sides compress his lungs as his ribs shift to the tempo of his horse, cracking in and out of place, his skull throbbing with immense heat beneath the bandage no longer covering his eyes (thankfully), and his arm is burning because the only way to fix a broken arm is to put it back in place (or in the kid Connie's definition,  _kick_  it back in because its angle is too tough for regularly applied pressure).

He casts his irritated gaze to his left and catches sight of Hange on her horse at his side. Her attention is detached and in the general direction of the ground.

"It's called cobblestone," he remarks sarcastically. She doesn't respond. He grips a handful of her auburn ponytail – ignoring the insistent ache in his body as he moves – and tilts her over so their foreheads touch, just the way he always does to earn her attention; anchoring her to the ground so she isn't so high within the clouds. Now she's looking at him. "Smile a little. You look constipated."

Hange snorts in failed attempt not to laugh – a boisterous noise like the soothing timbre of a saxophone. "I was just thinking!"

"About Titans, I assume."

"About experimenting on Titans."

He rolls his eyes skyward and lets her go. "Same thing retro-specs. Leave it to you to love the only thing that almost took your head off."

Erd trots by them, taking charge of the simple tasks to keep Levi from moving around and executing a headcount of the group. Luckily they only lost one: some new guy who apparently graduated from Eren's class… although when questioned about it no one even knew who he was (Jean promptly turns to Mikasa and whispers something incoherent. But Mikasa flips her hair and Jean falls silent, hiding his flaring face behind his hand).

The other soldiers are mostly battered with cuts and bruises, although Sasha Braus's wrist appears swollen and Günter Shulz's lower lip is split from a literal face-to-face encounter with flying debris. "Nothing two nights of rest can't fix," Armin Arlert reassures Eren with a wane smile when he questions on the well-being of the squad.

"We're going back to the gate!" Erwin Smith announces, galloping to the front of line. They can't afford to continue fighting for the day, especially with all the injuries, but at least they were successful in clearing the smallest city within the wall. "We'll try to take the next city in seven days."

The caravan moves out, although no one says a word the whole way back.

 

* * *

 

 

Levi stirs from his sleep because something isn't right.

He can feel as soon as his eyes snap open, alert to the thickness in the atmosphere, tasting the danger in the air; smelling the copper blood that fills his senses. His legs swing over the edge of the bed and he soothes out the crinkles in his pants and shirt (as usual). The sun is emerging shyly over the horizon but it is still dark in his room, casting bereaved shadows across the pristine walls and granite floors. Then he hears a grim, maniacal chuckle.

_There's someone here._

A hand wraps around his neck and tosses him across the room, slamming him into the bookshelf against the farthest wall. He hits the floor hard, dazed, wondering exactly where the fuck his assailant came from but he's being lifted by his shirt and rammed into the floor again, skull cracking against the ridges in the stone, again –  _the Titan crashes through the house_  – and again –  _and he watches in horror as his mother's blood splatters outwards from the monster's foot –_  and again –  _and the way the rubble crushes his sister and his father is split in half by the creature's teeth_ – until he goes numb to the pain and the blood from the split in his brow is flooding his vision.

His natural fighting instinct kicks in. He pushes himself up and his fist connects with the attacker's knee, knocking the figure to the floor, and he tackles it down. The figure falls into the shove, using Levi's weight against him, and throws him off balance long enough to kick him in the hip. Levi finds his emergency sword under his bed, only a few inches out of his reach, and goes for it.

The assailant grabs him by his ankle and tows him back, but it's too late – Levi skillfully swings the blade and slices into the shadow where the attacker had been. He leaps to his feet and points his blade at the darkness, backing up a wall so he can cover everything else.

The attacker appears right in his direct line of vision – it's a man with tangled ruddy hair, a beard that barely leaves his chin, and a grin that can rival a Titan's. His eyes glisten predatorily in the dim light of the barely rising sun. He is familiar, yet dwelling on the edge of Levi's memory. "Can't you hear it?" He asks, knife flashing silver in the darkness. "Don't tell me you don't hear it?"

Levi grinds his teeth together. Blood is filling his right eye and forcing it shut so he can't judge just how far away the man really is. "Who the hell are you?!"

He feels a sudden, acute stab of pain and glances down. The man has his knife driven all the way into Levi's chest, piercing layers of flesh and muscle right to the hilt. Levi gasps as blood fills his lung and his sword clatters harmlessly to the floor. The man leans into his ear.

_"Can't you hear her screaming?"_

Levi sits up with a start as a shrill, blood-curdling scream pierces the silence of the headquarters. It is still as equally dim in his room as it was in the nightmare, but by the lack of pain in his chest he knows that it's different, that it's  _real_  –

And he's up and running, sprinting down the halls just as the other legion members are throwing their doors open. Panic is wiring every sensor in his body and the next thing he knows he's sliding to a halt in front of her room. Jean Kirschtein and Eren are already there, throwing their entire weight against the unfortunately stable wood and Mikasa and Sasha looking on. "Move," he orders, shoving Jean aside. "Eren, break it down, just as we practiced."

"Yes, sir!"

The duo forces it open, Eren through a spin kick he learned from Annie and Levi via drop-kick, and the door explodes inwards, swinging around to impact the wall hard enough to splinter the wood. "Zoe!" He calls, glancing around. She isn't there, but when he leans out the window he sees her all the way in the courtyard, He beckons to her again but she doesn't notice; she's staggering forward with a short, steady stride, and by the way her arms wave limply he knows there's something wrong.

_She's fucking sleep-walking!_

"Fuck!" He snaps, barreling out the door and down the hall. Eren's calls echo out into his ears but he doesn't give them a single regard; he vaults down the stair cases five steps at a time, barreling by Connie and Petra, and out through the main doors. His torso is still on fire from the mission only two days ago but his legs thrust him forward on long, urgent strides, and his lungs are tense by the time he reaches the gate. "HANGE!" He screams when he catches sight of her in his line of vision, hoping to wake her from her slumber, but she's too far away –

And she's heading for the lake.

_Oh shit. **"HANGE!"**_

She steps out onto the edge of the old dock, soggy wood creaking beneath her weight, and the invisible face in the murky water telling her to come closer –  _closer_  –  ** _"just a little more, baby girl, come to Papa"_**  – and suddenly the dock isn't there anymore. She hits the frigid water face-down, sinking beneath the surface, allowing the darkness to claim her until she abruptly comes to her senses. Then she realizes that she isn't in her room anymore, and that there's water engulfing her; it's grim and cold and she's  _alone_.

She flails uselessly, able to see the moonlight high above but incapable of reaching for it. Her lungs collapse as she screams into the blackness, air escaping her, vision blurring as fire and fear and pain fill her torso. She tries to cry out for her mother who rests outside her memory, Petra, Erwin,  _Levi_  – but no one comes. And gradually the darkness claims her.

The last thing she sees is the moonlight rippling high above her, disturbed by the sudden splash in the surface, and a familiar hand grabs her arm. Then there is nothing,

But Levi refuses to lose her and he pulls up, yanking her out of the water and dragging her onto the land beneath the obsidian sky, the emerald grass crushed beneath them as he releases her collar and rolls her onto her back. "Wake up," he coerces, slapping her cheek. "Hey! Four eyes!"

"Captain!" Multiple shouts cry out as familiar faces surround him – it's his team, all five of them – but he doesn't care because Hange isn't fucking  _breathing_.

"She can't swim," he exclaims, leaning his ear to her lips. "Fucking hell - Petra, help me!"

"Sir!" Petra instantly complies, kneeling at Hange's side and locking her hands together, one on top of the other. She presses against Hange's chest, counting with each stroke. "One! Two! Three! Breathe Hanji! Five!" Levi pinches Hange's nose and captures her lips, exhaling into her mouth and into her lungs. "One! Two! Three! Four! Five!" Levi tries again. But nothing happens. "One! Two! Three! Four! Five!"

"Captain!" It's Auruo but he doesn't address him.

"Again Petra!"

"Captain please!" It's Gunter this time.

"Petra,  _let's go_!"

"Yes, sir! One! Two! Three! Four! Five!" Levi tries again. "One! Two! Three! Four! Five!" The dreadful, crushing cycle repeats, but the more Levi and Petra try the more defeat fills the younger girl's eyes.

"Captain!" Erd roars. This time they freeze. "Captain, please stop… she's gone. You need to stop!"

" _I can still save her!"_  He takes Hange by her hair and lifts her head up from the grass. "I SAID BREATHE YOU FUCKING BITCH!"

And he slams his forehead against hers.

Water erupts from Hange's lips and she rolls over, lungs expelling the foreign liquids and sucking in blessed air all at once. Petra steadies her to keep her from falling over, patting her back and muttering her concerns over and over. Levi exhales, his chest burning, his hands shaking. 

"Fucking hell… this bitch can't even sleep without me…"

Levi goes rigid, immediately grappling Petra by her elbow and towing her away from Hange. The auburn rises to her knees, sputtering the excess liquids from her mouth, digging her nails into the grass. "Back up," Levi orders, gesturing for his team to move. They don't bother to question him. He turns his onyx gaze down to the woman, lowering himself to the ground before her. "Don't move."

Cerise eyes turn up to meet his, glazed over with irritation and piqued interest. "…Yo."

"It's been a while."

The woman's frown turns up into a crooked, Cheshire smirk, similar to Hange's when the thrill of the fight sets in, but there's something sinister – something  _evil_ – that unnerves them to no end. "Oh, Levi, are you implying that you've missed me?"

"Far from it," he hisses, watching her movements carefully. "Give me Hange before I push you back into the lake."

"Ha, I see you haven't changed." She ascends to her feet and Levi shoots up automatically in response. "The streets haven't changed you, Zoe hasn't changed you"—she reaches up to touch his shirt where his heart is but he jerks away—"and this scar certainly hasn't either."

"Enough," he coerces, "get lost."

" _Pfft_ , whatever." She casts her ruby stare over his shoulder to Eren who has been watching them go back and forth with his eyebrow raised in concern. " _Awh_ , it's Zoe's favorite science experiment! Did she cut you limb from limb yet?" She makes a move to approach him but Levi steps in her way. "Don't be like  _that_ , Sugar. I'm not gonna hurt him~" Her playful façade falls flat as her murderous gaze lands on him. " _Much_."

"Hange…"

Levi internally winces.

Petra made the mistake of speaking up, and continues when Hange's attention finally turns to her. "What's wrong with you?"

"What. The Actual.  _Fuck_?" Hanji raises her forefinger to her temple, pressing against her throbbing vein. "Don't mistake me for that sociopathic bitch, alright? Let's just get  _that_  straight! I am  _not_  to be confused for Zoe. That's not even my fucking name!"

"Do you remember your name?" Levi retorts.

She pauses at that, glare softening. "Erm… no. Something with a D now?" She taps her chin thoughtfully. "Oh, it'll come to me one of these days…" Without warning she sidles up against him, sliding the pads of her fingertips along the line of his jaw. He does rigid in her pleasantly perverse touch. "Why don't you tell me then,  _Levi_ , hm? Or, if you prefer, you can  _scream_  it to me as I  _slice you open_ …"

He flips out her dagger from the back strap of her pants and wedges it into her thigh. She reels back with a startled yelp, landing on her knee of her good leg, clutching at the weapon wedged in the other.

**_"CAPTAIN!"_ **

"Silence," he hisses at them, but his hardened glare never leaves the auburn writhing in pain. Gradually her breathing shortens out, levels, ebbs into steady gasps. "Hange…"

"…L-Levi…" Wide eyes turn up to him again, but less sinister, and more curious. "Did you just stab me in the  _leg?"_

 

    

* * *

 

  

The main doors swing open to the corridor, decorated with familiar flags and Wings of Freedom emblems, and dotted with the concerned gazes of the Scouting Legion. Erd gently closes the doors behind him when his group as shuffles in. Erwin Smith isn't anywhere in sight, thankfully, so Levi's expression instantly turns sour.

Auruo decides to break the tension. "What the fuck are you looking at? Go back to sleep you little shit stains!" No one moves. They barely dare to breathe.  ** _"Now!"_**

Everyone scatters. Eren gives him a reassuring nod and treks towards the stair case to meet his sister and best friend. When everyone's well out of sight – his dismissed team included – he faces Hange to his left, arms crossed as she shivers and drips on the floor. Blood cascades down the plain of her thigh, but she doesn't seem to notice – nor is she seemingly concerned.

"It's really cold in here," she utters, ringing out the bottom of her sleeveless before crossing her arms again. He fists a handful of her damp shirt and throws her back, slamming her against the doors and pinning her arms over her head. "What the hell was that for?!"

"What the  _fuck_  happened out there?"

Levi may be shorter than her but he's certainly intimidating, making her feel small in his presence – small enough, in fact, that she wants to shrink into nothing and disappear forever. "I… It was just a stupid nightmare, OK?! About  _him!"_

"What the fuck does that have to do with sleep walking into a lake?!"

"I don't know Levi!" She thrashes in his grip but he holds her firm. "Let go of me!"

"Why should I?" He hisses, nails biting into her wrists. "Why should I do anything? Give me one good reason why I should let you out of my sight – so you can drown again? So I can lose you the same way I've lost everything else I care about, huh? Give me one good reason!" She manages to push up but he slams her back down, pinning her now with his whole body. "Why should I let you, Hange?! WHY?!"

"Stop!" She pleads, overwhelmed by the screaming and pain in her wrists and the flashbacks zipping before her cerise eyes. _**He's crushing her, and she tries to apologize but she's seen too much; the blood on the floors and the dead eyes staring back out of the darkness.**_  "Just stop!"

Levi grits his teeth, suddenly coming to terms with the situation. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry." His fingers release her and she massages at the bruises forming on her arms. "You just… Enough with this Mary Sue bullshit, alright? He's dead. He's dead and he isn't coming back." He cups her cheek to earn her attention. "And you are  _not_  him."

"It's just getting harder lately," she admits quietly, touching the patch of his shirt where a scar resides beneath, right over his heart. "With so much over-exposure to violence… I didn't think it'd be this consuming, y'know?" She chuckles nervously.  _The urge is always there, but it's never been so strong… And after that break I had two days ago, I'm not sure how much more of this I can handle._ She glances up at him, ruby gaze connecting with his obsidian orbs.  _And that dream…_

"After we bandage that leg, you're sleeping with me tonight."

Hange gasps, feigning shock and awe, and even though it irritates him he knows it's better than her having a psychotic meltdown. "Whoa, wow, Levi, you are  _certainly_  straight-forward. Makes me wonder why any girl would ever turn you down; assuming you can find someone that short."

"Fuck you Specs." He rolls his eyes skyward. "And  _that's_  not what I meant. That's what you  _wish_ I meant."

"Are you sure? Because I've read plenty of books on the reproductive system involving the process of conceiving children"—he sticks his forefingers into his ears and starts off, the chatterbox woman right at his heels—"and I think I might know some alternative positions so that you don't get me pregnant, especially since we don't have any proper form of protection!"

"Hange…"

"Yes Levi?"

"Shut the hell up."

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

"Your clothes are  _really_  big for someone of your height, Levi."

"If you don't like them take them off."

"Wouldn't you like that?"

"Put a cork in it, Four Eyes."

Hange doesn't fall asleep immediately, much to Levi's dismay (because she has a habit of rambling relentlessly when she's tired, despite the crash she should experience), but she's still cold from the lake, and instead of dripping up and down the castle he gives her one of his shirts and pants to wear and put on while he dressed on the other side of the room. "This shirt smells like you," she remarks, proceeding to stack the pillows in a haphazard order for no reason.

He makes an attempt to fix them; two for her, two for him. They have to be up in a few hours for curfew, and he's glad he can sneak in some more shut eye before then. His head, ribs, and arm are killing him, and his hair is still damp from the lake. "I would assume so."

"Like clean cotton," she continues, sitting on her side of the bed next to the  **locked**  window. "And… coffee. Fresh coffee, like Petra makes early in the morning." He rolls his eyes and sprawls out on his back, grumbling under his breath when she instantly slides under the comforter and snuggles up against him, head in the crook of his neck, leg hooked around his, arm across his waist. She's still frigid and he can feel it, so he doesn't say anything against their sudden position.

"Don't make this a habit," he utters humorlessly.

They've done this multiple times before – when they had been caught in the snow or the rain and it was warmer to sleep together, or when they simply felt like it; he still feels the same unexpressed, unidentifiable emotion welling within him that lingers in his gut, in his very bones.

She sighs into his chest. "I can hear your heart, Levi. It's so strong…" It drums soothingly within the cavern of his chest, sending pulses into her fingertips, body, her ears. Her slender fingers slide along the scar beneath his shirt. "I'm sorry."

He presses his lips to her brow. "It's not your fault… Don't think about it."

"I won't," she whispers, lifting herself up and sliding her thumb along his jawline. "I promise I won't…"

She's closer to him than he's comfortable with… but at the same time, he finds himself staring at her expectantly. Her touch is like static; her scent intoxicating, and she lowers her lips to his, tasting him on her tongue and feeling his heartbeat through his skin. He remember the first time they kissed – it happened when a slain Titan landed on him and she thought he was dead, only to find that he had located a small sinkhole to jump in. The reunion consisted of her kissing him then slapping him (hard) for scaring her. And some months later they became more intimate.

He presses back, gently grasping her damp hair and deepening the kiss. His tongue pushes past hers, massaging the walls of her mouth; hands finding her hips. She moans quietly, rubbing her torso against his longingly.

"I killed you," she says as soon as she breaks off for air, straddling his waist. "In my dream he made me kill you…and I just sat there uselessly, crying and helpless as he turned me into a monster, just like him."

He rolls them over and pins her beneath him, locking her arms over her head, trailing kisses along her cheek and down to her neck. "You already broke your promise," he utters dryly, "but it's OK. This is  _reality_ , Hange – I'm not dead. And you  _never_  tried to kill me."

"But  _he_ almost did." Her thoughts travel to his scar. "And she always tries…"

He kisses her and only breaks away to lean towards her ear. "Maybe it'd be easier if I took your mind off of it."

She shifts beneath him. "Not right now!"

"And why not?"

Her arms loosen from his grasp and bind his neck, one leg hooked over his waist and the other rubbing energetically against his thigh. She's not trying to be suggestive, and he knows this, but his blood is still redirecting to a familiar area. "Just… not now. Everyone's probably still up! They'll hear us."

He presses a kiss against the corner of her lips. "Fuck 'em, they can suck the darkest corner of my left-"

She pulls him down into a feverish kiss, guiding one of his hands to the edge of her shirt. He grunts against her and slides under the fabric, palm massaging her side, toned stomach, and finally cupping one of her firm breasts. She moans into his mouth, holding him closer when he lifts up her shirt to expose her chest. There are scars littering her body – they bring forth a memory he instantly pushes into the back of his mind – and he slides his lips along them, damaged nerves tingling against the contact. She gasps, heat pooling to that sensitive spot between her legs.

_"Levi's always been so direct, hasn't he?"_

_Shut up._

His mouth moves to one perked nipple and he sucks –  _hard_  – while softly pinching the other with his free fingers. The laughter in the back of her mind shatters apart; she cries out, arching her back as pleasure peaks within her. She's very sensitive, despite her tolerance to normal pain – and she practically tears the shirt from his back trying to remove it. He tosses it somewhere nearby and grips the other nipple with his teeth, rolling it around until she's moaning his name and begging for more.

So more he'll give her.

He slides the too-loose pants from her waist and pries her legs open at her knees, hot lips moving down her torso and his hands gliding along the inside of her thighs. She moans, sending vibrations into every fiber of her being. Then he finds her heat, tongue sliding along her folds and circling her swollen clit. She fists his hair and spreads her legs further, allowing gasps of his name to slip from her lips and crush the silence of the room.

A finger slides into her, but she's used to it by now, and he abruptly follows through with a second – pumps into her slowly, works her open gently and steadily.

Her nails dig into the sheets as he massages her collapsing walls, threatening to burst and put holes into his bed –  _"Levi…"_  – and she suddenly comes when he hits a bundle of nerves that send her right over the edge. Pleasure racks her body in waves, intense and consuming, like liquid fire that bursts through her nervous system and ignites the endings of her brain.

He claims her lips again, removing his suffocating pants and finding her slick warmth. His eager member kneads at her entrance, encouraging her into arousal again (which honestly doesn't take much at all). Her legs wrap around his waist as she growls impatiently in her throat. So he takes what he wants – she swallows him easily, almost perfectly molded to his size, although she digs her nails into the scarred flesh of his back.

"Are you okay?" He asks quietly, lips to her neck.

"I'm alright," she answers briskly, groaning as he starts to pull out of her. "Fuck, I'm alright,  _she_  just keeps talking."

He enters her slowly again. "I'm sorry, what was that?" She makes a move to flip them over but he pins her arms above her head again, bucking into her and hitting a too-tender spot that makes her cry out. "You're so sensitive."

"Stop teasing me," she hisses, moaning and gritting her teeth when he pauses. "You're such an asshole."

He grunts what could pass as a laugh. "I try."

He thrusts into her again, earning a mingled shout that sounds something like a  _yes,_  and picks up his usually hard, steady tempo, kissing every sensitive nerve in her neck and on her breasts. He adjusts her hips against his thighs so she lifts up to meet him, moving faster, hitting the obvious G-spot within her that earns intervals of cries and one " ** _Levi!_**  There!  _Right there!_  Ah, that feels  _incredible!_ " loud enough to wake up the whole place if the walls hadn't been crafted out of stone.

"Hange," he whispers into her ear, pressure between them building as her muscles collapse against him and tighten around him all at once. She becomes suffocating, but it encourages him to move faster – to hit her sweet spot more intensely – to kiss her and touch her and make her  _his_.

_He didn't kill me. I am **here** , with  **you** , as alive as I've ever been since that first time we met –_

She comes with one last cry and he follows a few thrusts later, releasing deep within her, riding out his climax with her until they draw to an abrupt stop. Levi presses a gentle kiss against her forehead and collapses at her side, still injured arm throbbing in the aftermath. She stretches out on top of him, head to the crook of his neck, arms limp at his sides. "You're really loud," he remarks tastelessly, glancing down at her expectantly for a reaction, but she's already fast asleep against him.

He draws her closer, lips to her brow, and falls into a dreamless slumber.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Hanji claws at the crust gluing her eyes shut as she shuffles down the hall into the kitchen, her fire-glazed hair haphazard in an even messier ponytail and Levi's shirt still too loose, even when tucked into the hem of her borrowed pants. Three hours of sleep haven't done any good for her, subsequently, and she feels a cramp coming on between her legs, but right now her mind is set on Heaven's good gift of  ** _coffee_**. With seven tablespoons of sugar. Maybe nine. And by that acute smell wafting down the hall, she knows that Petra is up and about, brewing a fresh jar.

She enters the massive room to find the red-head pouring herself a glass, and Günter is already sipping intently at his. His lip is still swollen. "I'll take a tall one," Hange mutters, still half-asleep and blind as a bat without her glasses, "with extra extra  _extra_  sugar. I'm gonna need it. Levi, too." She had climbed over Levi to get up because he was dead as a fucking box of rocks, so she made a mental note to bring him a cup later.

The duo jumps at the sudden sound of her voice and Petra faces her, a crimson blush highlighting her cheeks. Günter immediately leaps up and exits, passing right by Hange without an acknowledgement and his gaze focused on that interesting spot on every stone in the floor.

She frowns. "What's with you guys?"

Petra gathers her wits, barely able to make eye contact, and turns back to set up another two glasses for her colleagues. "Erm…we – as in Günter, Erd, and I – kind of heard you… y'know – with Corporal Levi earlier this morning."

"Well, hot damn. Sorry about that." She collapses in her chair at the table, head on the notched oak top to serve as a pillow. "He couldn't keep it in his pants until later. I would've preferred sleeping."

Petra arches an eyebrow at her. "At least it sounded good."

"Always."

"I'm jealous."

"I'm jealous of myself."

"You can't be jealous of  _yourself_ , Hange."

As if on cue Levi enters, combing through his thick hair with his calloused fingers (Petra notes that it's the kind of style you'd see after sex, which only makes it harder to look at him directly without flushing) and yawning behind his hand. "Good fuckin' morning, Petra." His usual greeting, unfortunately for the rest of the legion. Hange throws her head back to view him from up-side down, but he takes that as an invite and kisses her, discreetly gliding his tongue along her lower lip. He takes the seat beside her. "I came because I smelled coffee."

"Of c-course!" Petra stutters, but then she suddenly moves for the door. "Oh, I'm sorry Corporal, but it seems Dita is calling me for some help in the stables! Sorry! Terribly sorry! Coffee's still hot! Help yourself! Sorry again! Bye!" She disappears before they can object.

Levi sighs. "This's your fault, flat chest."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Erwin Smith is filing parchment papers – as he has been doing all day, unfortunately – when Levi storms into his office unannounced, slamming the door shut and locking two of the three bolts so suddenly he almost goes into immediate cardiac arrest. He turns to the Corporal and arcs an eyebrow. "Good afternoon, Levi. What can I help you with?"

"I came to make a request."

"…I have a feeling I know where this is going." Erwin stacks the papers in his hand on the corner of his red wood desk and sits, brushing invisible dust from his pants and grunting when he settles. "Shit, I'm getting old. I'm doomed when my hairs change color."

Levi perches in the right chair at the head of Erwin's desk, crossing one leg over the other, gradually removing his cut-off jacket to get more comfortable and folding it over his lap. "I don't ask you for much, Erwin, I really don't… but this request means a lot to me and to the sake of our success outside the walls." He glances up to see that his superior is studying him, unmoving. "I want you to remove Hange Zoe from the mission."

Erwin presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek. "Because…?"

"She's emotionally compromised," he drones with a twinge of his lips, "and after the fiasco during the last mission I don't want to risk any more soldiers. We both know who her father was; lately I've noticed a bit of him rising within her. That other half of hers is taking more control. I believe that exposing her to an over-excess of violence will be too much for her to handle and it will compromise the mission – she could kill any of us in a blind fit of bloodlust."

Erwin grunts under his breath. "The River Town Ripper is  _dead_ , Levi."

"I know. But his daughter  _isn't_. You worked on the case, Erwin – you're the one who put your sword into his fucking throat! You and I both noticed it after that first mission – that first expedition outside the walls – there is no cure for her natural insanity. And if her insanity becomes fueled by that instinct to kill there is no telling what she'll do next."

"She's been good all these years," Erwin interjects, folding his hands on his desk top. "Why now?"

"Timing, most likely." Levi rolls up his shirt and reveals the massive scar off-center on his chest. "Tomorrow is just another anniversary of his death, and with all the chaos of this mission I don't think she can mentally handle it. We've been on expeditions before… but it's never been like this." He lowers his shirt. "I can try to do the best I can to keep her from breaking again… but there's only so much I'm capable of doing."

"Judging by what I heard this morning you've got it under control."

"Fuck you, Old Geezer."

Erwin sighs. "OK, Levi. I'll take her off. But she's not going to be happy. I suggest you move all sharp objects around HQ to hidden locations for the time being. And the next time she breaks, you need to report it to me."

"I know," Levi utters under his breath, gripping the jacket splayed out on his lap. "I know…"

 

  

* * *

 

  

Eren has direct view of the courtyard and entrance of HQ from the stables, so when he looks up he can see the activities of his peers and commanding officers – Petra who seems to be desperately trying to occupy herself with something, not that he knows why; Armin who's trying to settle a questionable dispute between Connie and Sasha over a loaf of bread she's half-eating half-pointing at; even the lone rider that's galloping towards the castle at break-neck speed –

_Wait._

Eren watches from his position as the unfamiliar speckled horse slows its stride and trots through the gates into view, obsidian tail flipping back and forth enthusiastically. There's a familiar woman seated up top, however, and without even asking Dita for permission he sprints down the winding staircase, ramming right into Mikasa and Jean on the center walkway. "Sorry!" He exclaims, "in a rush! Gotta go!" but when he makes a move to dodge around them Jean grapples him by his collar.

"Easy tiger!" He remarks snidely, towing Eren backwards – much to the younger boy's immediate agitation. "Where's the emergency?"

" _What's_  the emergency in this case?" Mikasa amends. "Are there Titans?"

"Annie's here!" Eren answers quickly, slipping out of Jean's grasp and bolting down the walkway.

Jean presses his lips into a thin line. "I'd rather take the Titans." Mikasa casts him an inquisitive stare and he shrugs passively. "I'm just saying! Annie's the scariest fucking thing to have ever graced this side of the planet. I wouldn't touch her with a twenty foot pole… unless I want my arms chopped off. And, quite frankly, I like my arms."

"Everyone in the Scouting Legion likes their arms, Jean." She starts off in her brother's wake. "And I know Eren  _loves_  his, so let's go get him before he loses them."

They make it halfway across the courtyard by the time Annie dismounts her horse, Eren barreling at her with an intimidating amount of speed. "Annie!" He calls out, a little too enthusiastically for  _anyone_  to handle.

Her normally stern expression softens as his familiar face approaches. "Oh, hello Er"—he throws himself at her, winding his arms around her petite body and holding her close, cheek pressed against her ear so she can hear his blood pulsating to the heavy beating of his heart—" _en?_ " She's never been so comfortably close with someone before –  _ever_  – but he's breath-takingly warm, and his toned grasp familiar enough that she doesn't bother to floor him on spot.

"Wow Mikasa, never knew your brother had a thing for blondes."

Eren quickly pulls away, whirling around to face them. "Put a cork in it, Horseface!" He turns back and Jean sticks his tongue out childishly. Mikasa glares at him again. "Anyway, what are you doing here, Annie?"

"I came to see Reiner and Bernholdt." She doesn't notice that Eren seems a little disappointed. "Do you know where I might find them?"

"Dining Hall," Mikasa answers first. "They were put on dinner duty today."

"I'll take you there!" Eren declares, grappling Annie's horse by its reigns and marching off towards the stables. She tucks a loose bang behind her ear before following intently, and Jean simply makes an incoherent remark that earns him yet another glare from the ebony-haired girl at his side.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The following afternoon Hanji gets a knock on her door, and opens it up to find Erwin… and the Order of Temporary Removal in his grasp.

  


	4. Chapter 4

**Thirteen Years Ago, 91st Trainee Squad Day 17**

Levi massages his temples as a mild headache comes on. Foreign fingers poke and prod at the swelling bruise at the peak of his forehead, but he's more agitated that the person examining him hasn't washed her hands since the day's events ended – she's smudged with dirt and blood from having her nose elbowed by her sparring partner, and her hair is out of place. He sighs. "Please stop touching me."

"But it looks like it hurt a lot."

"It did. Touching it is only making it worse."

Hange settles back into place and peers down emotionlessly at her food. The dining hall around them is alive with chatter as people finally get comfortable with each other enough to make friends, but the duo is situated at a table in the back, by themselves. Levi isn't the most approachable, and everyone else is too afraid of Hange to stand within ten feet of her. She huffs at her meal. "I'm not in the mood to eat."

"Me neither," Levi utters, shoving his dish away. "I can't focus on my stomach with this bump on my head. That asshole almost split my skull in two."

As if on cue the doors swing open and the very air quells in the presence of their instructor. His arms are folded behind his back so his chest muscles strain against his shirt; cobalt eyes fixed straight ahead, saffron hair a little longer than it had been last month like he had forgotten to cut it again.

Levi leans towards Hanji so their shoulder's touch, lowering his voice to a monotone whisper. "And here he is, back for more."

"At ease," he announces, moving towards the back tables. The braver trainees start up their previous conversations, although a few watch the movements of the chief out of the corner of their eyes and only look away when he catches them staring. He sits across from Levi and Hange – Hange smiles; Levi presses his lips into a thin line. "How are you holding up?"

"You head-butted me," Levi dead pans.

"Hi Erwin!" Hange chirps.

Erwin allows a wane smile to cross his normally stern features. "Hey Hange." He turns his attention to Levi. "And sorry about that, Levi. I may be your legal guardian, but I can't treat you any differently than the rest of the recruits. You should've left your back-talking behind with your thugs."

"I wasn't a thug," Levi amends bitterly. "I just didn't know I was working for one."

Erwin sighs under his breath. "I know, I know – I just wanted to make sure you two were holding up alright. You still have three years ahead of you. And once you graduate I won't be your legal guardian anymore."

"Are you going back to the Survey Corps?" Hange asks quizzically.

"Of course. I'm only here because of you two."

Levi huffs, blowing his obsidian bangs out of his face. "Well, sooner you leave the better. I don't think I can handle anymore brain damage. It might become a challenge to actually be first in the class."

Erwin swings his legs over the bench. "You should let Hange cut your hair tomorrow, Levi. You can barely see two feet in front of your face."

"That sounds like a wonderful idea." Levi retorts. "I've always wanted to die by scissor blades."

"I'm a woman, Levi – I'm naturally talented with hair."

"I'm still not convinced you're even human." He fists her auburn locks, gently shaking her head. "No normal person can run on pure energy for fourteen straight hours with no sleep – especially after what we go through on a regular basis."

Erwin shakes his head. "It's about trust."

They glance at each other – Levi rather blankly from the corner of his eye and Hange a bewildered head turn – then at him. "Trust?" Levi echoes, but it's a new word that tastes sour on his tongue. The last time he trusted anyone it was that thug, but he knows that Hange has even worse issues than him – she hasn't exactly had it easy for the first stretch of her life. He wouldn't be surprised if she barely trusted him beyond sitting at his side.

Erwin nods. "Hange, do you trust Levi?"

She glances at the boy next to her, cerise gaze softening as she contemplates her answer. "I do."

"And Levi, do you trust Hange?"

Even though he's still stumbling over her answer, he quickly rolls his eyes. "This sounds like a fucking wedding ceremony." Thing about thugs? They swear a lot, like it's their own language. It's a really bad habit too difficult to break, but for Levi it feels natural – his words roll off of his tongue like water and they always slip before he can realize what he's saying.

Erwin is watching him carefully. "Answer the question."

"No I don't fucking trust her. Her father almost killed me. She probably has his psychedelic tendencies."

An uncomfortable silence settles amongst them, not because he said what Hange probably didn't want to hear, but it was the truth she didn't want to accept. She bites her lip and stares down at the table, eyes suddenly itchier than normal. "Oh," is all she says. He studies her from the corner of his vision; she sits upright again, forcing herself to smile even though he can see right through her façade. "I understand Levi, it's fine. I wouldn't trust myself."

"Don't guilt trip me, shitty glasses. I was being honest."

"So was I."

Erwin claps his hands and they glance at him in synch. "Well, now that we know where you two stand, work on your trust issues."

As they watch him leave Levi recites that "trust" word in his mind, over and over and over until it settles complacently in his vocabulary. He turns his head to Hange.  _Can I really trust someone like her?_

She pushes her now cold food around with her fork. "Just have some faith in me, like I do in you."

 

* * *

 

_This can't be happening! Please be a mistake, please be a mistake!_

Hange sprints down the halls of the massive castle, hurtling over the spiraling steps and past her colleagues, nearly knocking Mike, Jean,  _and_  poor Petra over in the process. She vaults through the doors just as Ymir and Christa come through, parting to let her by. Her legs thrust her forward on pure energy, but by the lack of a smile and screaming of "EUREKA MOTHERFUCKERS!" at the top of her lungs, most of the Recon soldiers she passes know there's something wrong.

_This has to be a mistake… why would Erwin… why would Levi…?_

She reaches the courtyard and spots Levi in her line of sight, seemingly caught in a conversation with Mikasa and Armin (over a spot of dirt they probably missed in between the cracks or something). The longer she stares the more her earlier conversation with Erwin rattles in the back of her mind.

_Why would Levi betray my like this?_

Her stride picks up instantly and she reaches him in a matter of seconds, torso fueled by revenge, anger, hate and denial, rearing her arm back and punching him directly in the cheek with a sickening  _crack_. He stumbles but digs his center of balance into the ground and holds up.

"Captain!" Armin exclaims.

"I can't believe you!" She snaps at Levi, ignoring them completely. He straightens to the best of his ability, a little shaken up, and touches his swelling bruise, but despite the pain his gaze is steady and focused on her. An ancient fury fills her eyes – it's a glare that he has only seen on one person before, like murder is the next thing on their mind – and it's  **scary**. "I trusted you, asshole! And you – and you go ahead and do  _this_  to me! Why would you take me off the mission without even asking me?!"

Levi scoffs humorlessly under his breath. "I take it Smith told you."

"Of course he did!" Her expression contorts with rage, hurt, and disbelief. He wants to feel guilty – but he can't, because he put the request in for  _her_ , because he had his reasons. "How could you betray me like this, Levi?!"

All is quiet. He hates the way she uses his first name like  _that_  – she always calls him Captain even when angry (which is such a rare occasion he even forgot she was capable of anything other than sadistic jubilee and borderline insanity), because she's used to it like that, not Corporal or Levi or both, just  _captain_  – but instead of humoring her he merely rubs at his cheek like the filth has set under his skin.

She's shaking now.  **"ANSWER ME!"**

So he does. "I'm sorry, Hange, but you're emotionally compromised. After your last break and that incident from two nights ago I couldn't have you fucking up this mission." He retains his hollowed, emotionless tone and features, and brushes invisible dirt from his sleeve. "Erwin was in obvious agreement."

Hange takes three steps back, fists clenched and eyes glazed over with tears. "I can't… I can't believe you would do this." Her words spear him in the heart; she's broken, defeated – but he had to do it. He simply had to.

"Hange–"

"Stay the fuck away from me!"

And then she's gone. She's gone and his heart is throbbing so immensely he just wants to rip it out of his chest with his bare hands. "Fucking A," he mutters, massaging his throbbing wound. And now his arm is hurting again too, but for no real reason (you can't exactly hope the bandages come off at the end of the same week you get hurt, but he wishes they would).  _Fuck, fuck, fuck…_

Armin and Mikasa stand in a passive, uncomfortable silence, watching as Hange sprints through the front doors right by Erwin. Erwin has his eyes on the ground.

 

* * *

 

 

"She messed you up pretty good, Captain. I clearly see who wears the pants in this relationship."

"That's not funny, Auruo."

"Oh, don't get your panties in a twist, babe. I'm just saying."

Levi barely winces when Petra dabs at the still swollen mark on his face. "Sorry," she utters, massaging around the edges with her fingertips. "At least it's gone down considerably since before. It's amazing what a few hours can do to the face… but I suggest you don't sleep on that side tonight." Dinner is noticeably quiet in Hange's absence, not that the new comers seem to mind (she has, after all, tried to experiment on all of them for one reason or another), Erwin's team is strangely missing, and Auruo and Petra sit on either side of Levi at the end of the table near the doors. Petra holds the ice pack up to his face. "Looks like it hurts."

"Not as bad as his pride," Auruo remarks snidely, but a sideways glance from both of them instantly shuts him up.

"I didn't think she'd be so upset," Levi mumbles under his breath, taking the ice pack so he can hold it himself.

"I'd be pretty upset," Petra voices and turns to her meal. They're having stew, although Levi isn't very interested in eating so that Sasha girl, seizing the opportunity, peers up from under the table, grabs the bowl and disappears again. "After all," Petra continues, "you took me off of the most important mission we've had so far without informing me ahead of time. It's… I don't know what a good word for it is."

"It feels like you were betrayed," Auruo finishes for her.

"Yes. I would feel betrayed. It's like putting all my faith into someone who just goes and stabs me in the back." She leans her elbow on the table, cheek recumbent on her fist. "You should go make amends."

"She should understand why I did it."

"It's about trust, Captain."

The doors behind them slam open. Everyone jolts in their seats and whirls around to see Nanaba in the doorway, face glistening with sweat and chest heaving for breath. "Corporal Levi!" Levi shoots to his feet instantly, but Nanaba finishes before he can form a question. "Commander Smith needs to see you! It's an emergency! I'm to take you and four of your choice soldiers to him! Get ready!"

Levi grinds his teeth together. He has a feeling he knows where this is going. "Team." The soldiers rise in synch. "You're all with me."

Nanaba waits for them to grab their stored gear and then leads them all out the door, down the corridor and out into the courtyard. Erwin is in the stables saddling his horse when they finally find him. "Commander!" Nanaba exclaims, "I've brought them!"

"Good!" He replies. "Everyone, saddle up."

"What's the about?" Levi questions, and even though he's stoic as ever his words are laced with poison. His team scatters on cue, moving for their horses.

Erwin mounts his own steed, jaw set and eyes hard. "I saw Hange leaving about half an hour ago on her horse."

 _Of-fucking-course._ "Where's she going?" The corporal asks next, moving swiftly to the gate behind him and freeing his granite stallion. Erwin, unfortunately, doesn't respond. That's when realization clicks into place in his mind. "That's in Wall Maria!"

The soldiers fall silent. Eren glances at him then at Mikasa. "W-Wall Maria?"

"I know," Erwin voices, trotting by them. "Our target location is right against Wall Rose though, a town along the river, and it's close to the path we started to take during the first half of the expedition; so if we can utilize the cover of dark we can sneak by the Titans. We'll have to go over the wall and travel by foot."

"Without anyone noticing?" Auruo retorts with a sarcastic scoff. "We'll be shot down by the firing squad for this…"

Petra hits him harmlessly in his shoulder with her fist. "Don't talk like that."

"It's true, babe. You know it."

The horses start out in a line with Erwin in the lead, and Nanaba and Levi right behind him. "We're going to Wall Maria," Eren utters, glancing at Mikasa to his left. "What's Hange going all the way out there for?"

"Girl's got issues," Auruo remarks from behind him. "Her father murdered twenty-seven people before anyone realized what was going on."

A chill slithers down Eren's spine.  _Twenty-seven people? Just like that?_ He connects unnerved gazes with his sister.  _And in cold blood? That might explain her unusual behavior… but she's not crazy like him, right?_

"They called him the River Town Ripper," Erwin interjects, guiding the group to the courtyard entrance. They break into an immediate gallop and then full blown sprint by the time he continues his statement. "Hange was too young to remember everything detail for detail, but the basement in their home was where he kept the bodies. Or, rather, what was left of them."

"Sick freak stitched random limbs to random torsos and named them." Auruo slid his finger across his throat. "Before he died his last victim was named Heidi."

"He didn't name them!" Petra rebounds, keeping pace beside him.

"He totally did! People like him have to call their creations something. If Hanjge takes more after him than we thought, he probably had his own naming ceremony too."

"Stop making fun of dead people, Auruo."

He snorts and shrugs, properly gripping his reigns again. "See, babe,  _this_  is why I told my mother there is no way in Sina I'm going to marry you. You aren't wife material. This is  _also_  why you haven't had a boyfriend since you were a trainee."

"Regardless," Erwin says to break them up, "I believe that – in light of what's been transpiring – she going to the source of her distress to find some comfort. It seems to be her M.O. And it's the best place I can think of that she'd go."

"But it's dangerous out there," Mikasa voices.

"She doesn't fear anything but her past." All eyes turn to Levi. He has his gaze set straight ahead, on the billowing blackness stretched out before them. "Killing Titans is fun for her. But sometimes death reminds her of what she's running away from, and she can only seek comfort in the insanity that offers her a way of forgetting."  _And this time she didn't run away from me so she could get out; she ran away to forget the truth._

He exhales, mind slowing its gears, lung compressing the stress from his body.

_The truth that she really is her father's daughter. And lying isn't going to help her anymore._

 

* * *

 

 

The town in the Konstanze District is relatively empty and ignited by the full moon suspended in the sky overhead. It's tattered, bruised, and beaten, but the group trudges on without a second thought. Erwin and Levi lead them to a boarded up home kissing the edge of the waterfront. Its windows are obsidian black and the wood that had been crossing the door is splintered and on the ground.

 _She broke in,_ Eren notes, glancing at his team anxiously.

"Wait for me," Levi orders, pushing the door open. A hurricane of dust and stench of mildew hits his senses –  _absolutely disgusting_  – but he mans-up and enters the awaiting darkness. The door swings shut behind him. Everything is eerily silent, heavy with musk and reeking of black mold. He shouldn't be here long.

"Hey, Shitty Glasses, you here?"

She's sitting on the kitchen table, feet on the chair, gaze intently fixated on nowhere, and a journal in her lap. "Found it in his room," she answers him blatantly, rubbing her thumb along the calloused texture of the cover. "Has all his victim's names in it, and how he killed them… where he found them…"

"Hange," he starts, moving over to her. "I know you must feel betrayed, or hurt or whatever, but you have to understand why I did what I did."

She ignores his remark and kicks the chair out from under her. "This book has you in it, too, but you're the last one." She sets it down at her side, sliding off the table. "He never got the chance to input anything past his plans for killing you. He was going to carve out your heart and put your arms on that other girl chained up next to you…"

His stomach churns.  _Please don't bring it up._

"I can see why you wouldn't want to trust someone like me… daughter of a man twisted beyond even the darkest imaginations…"

Levi approaches her quickly, arms wrapping around her thin frame and holding her close. She settles comfortably into his familiar touch. "That's not true," he whispers into her ear, "I do trust you, Hange, and I'm so sorry…"

"I'm sorry too," she returns quietly. If he had been paying attention in that exact moment, he would've seen the bloodthirsty glint behind her glasses.

A flare of pain erupts from his side and she shoves him away in the same fluid motion, letting her maniacal grin replace her despondent expression. He glances down – to see the dagger wedged deep into his gut, his flesh swallowing the serrated blade to the hilt, crimson blood soaking into his shirt like paper in water.

He hits the floor knees first.

"I'm sorry," she apologizes again, sliding her secondary knife along her tongue. "But Hanji isn't here right now. And you, Corporal Levi, are going to die."

  

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Ten Years Ago – Day after the Expedition Outside the Walls**

__

_"Corporal Smith!"_

_"Corporal, wait! You aren't authorized to be down here!_

_Erwin Smith shoves by the guards and sprints down the winding staircase into the lower level jail cells, blowing by the soldiers who all shout out to him._ This can't be fucking happening _, he thinks somewhere in between the blurring events racing through his mind._ Please let this be a mistake _… The Commander had told him specifically not to enter the jail cells, but when Mike Zacharias informed him of the rumors related to Hange and Levi he had to take action._ They're more important right now _._

_He finds a cell surrounded by soldiers three halls down. Levi is seated on the bench across from the open gate, head in his hands and lips moving swiftly as he mumbles incoherent remarks to himself._

_"Levi!" Erwin exclaims, racing over to him. "Levi, you made it back!"_

_He had no doubts, really. Levi is a prodigy; practically bred for slaughtering Titans. But as he turns his obsidian gaze up to meet Erwin's, there's this look on him that borders fear – absolute, all-consuming terror that rages within him like fire to a forest. He opens his mouth, slightly, but the words hitch in his throat._

_Erwin approaches him, taking the boy by his shoulders. "Levi, where's Hange?"_

_Levi registers the familiar touch, but his expression remains void of emotion. It's blank, unnervingly flat as always but without that quirky sense of seriousness. "Hange… Our squad was surrounded. Everything seemed lost; even though we're the best we couldn't take them all."_

_"Tell me what happened to Hange." His fingers dig into the thick material of Levi's jacket. "That's an order, Levi."_

_He doesn't answer. Instead his index finger comes up to gesture to the cell before them. Erwin gyrates so suddenly he almost snaps his spine and storms through the soldiers who don't try to stop him this time, hands balled into tight fists as he steps into the awaiting darkness._

_He spots Hange on her knees chained to the wall, tattered, bruised and beaten, and her body is a pristine canvas soiled with searing, smoking blood that is both hers and Titans'. Gradually she picks her head up, carmine eyes glazed over with a sedated bloodlust and piqued curiosity. "Don't get too close," the Scout Legion member at Erwin's side coerces, touching the Corporal's shoulder blade. "She's dangerous."_

_"She's not dangerous," he snaps, glancing back at her. "What did you do, Hange?"_

_She snorts, inhaling sharp mockeries of laughs and exhaling breath laced with cyanide. "Oh, Erwin. Papa Smith. Man who killed our father and still took us in… I haven't seen you since that night." She tosses her head back, suddenly, bloodied lips pressed taught into a thin line. "I have many names for you, but that can wait ti'll later."_

_He goes rigid. "Hange, this isn't funny."_

_"I'm not Hange you fucking dolt!" She pulls at her chains, frigid metal clanging against the cobblestone walls in response to her movements. "I'm her better half._ Ugh _, figures – that bitch has kept me locked for so long I'm not surprised you've forgotten about me."_

_His eyes narrow into dangerous slits. "You're-?"_

_"I was Hange's way of coping with the events in her life, and I naturally took over when those gargantuan fucktards scared her shitless." She chuckles under her breath before falling still again. "Don't confuse me for that useless dumbass." The other half adjusts herself so she's sitting against the wall, one leg crossed over the other. "Much better… Now, I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm here because I tried to kill the cleanup crew."_

_The soldier next to Erwin scoffs. "You're going to get executed for that."_

_"Put a sock in it before I use my fist."_

_Erwin steps between them. "Hey, focus. Who are you?"_

_"I'm Hange!" She coos, throwing her hands up in sarcastic rejoice and moving back up to her knees. "Plot twist! I'm her other insanity, specifically. All that sweet, sadistic childhood trauma got to her, and I was her way of suppressing these memories. Things got a little too crazy for your poor little girl"—she slides her thumb along the horizontal length of her neck—"and she gave in to me, because there was nothing else she could do. Death isn't something shit-for-brains can accept."_

_Erwin studies her for several moments: the way she looks back with that serious expression exactly like Hange's, or how her eyes hold emotions trademark of her other half, but her smirks are notably scary; they're sadistic, cruel and belittling, like she's imagining slicing something apart to experiment with absolute destruction and abyssal delusion. It isn't human. Just like her father's._

_"I want you to give her back," he says finally._

_"Blow me."_

_A sudden shadow darts into view and hits the girl across the face with enough force to knock her to the floor. "Levi!" Erwin exclaims, caught between anger and bewilderment._

_The boy is shaking as vexation and ire fills the brim of his body, but his gaze is cold and unforgiving and posture unwound. "He said to give her back," he seethes through grit teeth, "_ **_now,_ ** _you fucking bitch."_

_She rises to her knees, back of her hand massaging her swelling cheek. "You punch like a child, Shrimp Cake." She turns her glare up to them before sighing. "Fine, I'll give your little dipshit back, but the next time she loses complete control I won't be so generous."_

_"Your name," Erwin demands._

_She pauses for a moment, almost as if trying to search in her shared memories for an answer, and eventually grins. "Hange likes to call me-"_

.:.:.

.:.:.

"D-Demetria…"

Cerise eyes gleam with bloodlust, illuminating like fire in the moonlight. Gradually the name sinks in and Hange –  ** _Demetria_**  – taps her chin with her blade in synch with a thoughtful metronome, ticking again, and again, and again, and – "Oh, yes, that's right…! I haven't heard you call me that in such a long time." She twirls her dagger along her fingers skillfully.

"Demetria," he seethes through grit teeth. "Give her back to me!"

"Or what?" She presses the serrated blade again her cheek, grin wide and a much more menacing kind of maniacal than what Hange normally wears. "Are you afraid I'll hurt your little fuck toy?"

He visibly stiffens, expression contorting with a rare physical display of pure anger.

"Believe me, Levi, I'm going to do much more than that." The dagger angles so it hovers right over her eye. "Maybe I'll carve her up. Which do you prefer: the right, the left"—she moves it to the opposing side of her face and sinks the blade into her flesh—"or both?" She descends diagonally, slicing cleanly through the brow, across her nose and down the opposing cheek beneath, but completely misses the eyes themselves. Blood spills down from the wound and she unfurls her tongue, relishing in the bitter taste.

Levi struggles to stand, fingers curling around the hilt of the weapon in his gut and tugging it free. Crimson liquid splatters across the smudged floor but he remains upright, obsidian stare glazed over with an intense desire for revenge. "I'm going to fucking kill you."

"But that would require killing your lover, no?"

He visibly stiffens at that.

She moves the knife to her stomach, curling it around pretentiously as her lips twist up in a mockery of a sneering smile. "I wonder how many times I can stab this body before it dies." A grim chuckle escapes her lungs. "Poor little Zoe… at the mercy of her own morbid self." The malicious laughter reverberates into the darkness. "She's  _screaming_ for you to run _,_ y'know. Not that it'll save you"—she raises the blade to the apex of her stomach—"or her!"

Levi suddenly rams into her, thrusting his dagger upwards and slamming them both against the table. The ancient wood collapses beneath them, splinters stabbing into Demetria's back as they impact the floor. She kicks up and propels him over her, jumping to her feet and taking a defense stance. Levi rolls up, sticking his landing before he hits the wall.

The dagger is wedged in Demetria's right hand.

She grins, ripping it out with a mere grunt. The second lays buried in the table ruins, a dead center distance between them. Levi dives for it but she reaches first, sliding her weight into him and tackling him out of the way. He throws his knee up into her stomach, twice, but the third time she recovers just fast enough to dig her fist into his open wound. His grip loosens, giving her the immediate opening she needs.

She draws back and spins, solid kick connecting with his chest and sending him cashing through the window. He throws himself into the momentum, landing on his back among the shards and rolling up to his knees.

"CAPTAIN!" Multiple screams resound.

"Levi!" Erwin exclaims over them, reaching for his hilts as instinct takes over. "What's happening?!"

"It's Demetria!" He snaps back, reflexively leaping up when she soars through the window and impacts the ground where he had been only a split second before, dagger blades snapping like twigs against the stone.

Demetria turns her attention to the group several yards away, her lips twisting into a menacingly playful smirk. "Oh, Levi you brought me a gift! And to add some icing to that cake, you even added dear old Papa Erwin."

Erwin pauses and white noise fills his thoughts, eyes hardening dangerously as his hilts connect with his swords.

She only grins wider. "Ah, so willing to hurt your little girl… I'll get a nice fight out of you." She drops her busted cutlasses and reaches for her swords, fingers curling like snakes around the grips. "Are you watching, Hange? I'm going to cut their heads off one by one!" Somewhere in the back of her mind she can hear Hange screaming into the impending darkness. "Daddy would be so proud of us!"

Erwin draws his blades in synch with the rest of his team. "Engage that target," he orders, but he doesn't say anything against killing her, much to Demetria's appeasement.

Demetria utilizes her gear to shoot up to the roof, Mikasa right behind her. She parries the younger girl's blow, landing a kick to her gut that knocks her off balance and ducking under a potentially fatal swing from Auruo. She leaps off, soaring up to a clock tower right above them. Her blades parry Erd's blow with ease, and she slices through one of his lines, sending him into the roof. Petra appears beneath her, twirling to keep herself right in the air as they trade blows. Auruo swings around the tower, lunging forward with his swords aimed for Demetria's shoulders.

The woman suddenly drops and he slams into Petra, knocking them both out of the flight and into the roof of the closest building. Gunter appears behind her, slashing up, but meets her swords and then her _boot_ as she brings a leg up and kicks him square in the jaw. He's sent off course, landing safely against the side of the tower.

Eren meets her as she nears the pavement, slashing upwards as she strikes down, running their blades together with such force sparks shoot in various directions. The corner of her lips upturn into her usual, menacing grin. "You're the boy Hange likes to experiment with!"

They shove each other off but he follows her as she launches back into the air to gain some ground. Their weapons shatter the stillness in the air with metallic screams that grate on his ears. "Give Hanji back!" He barks and spins as the ravished town rockets up to meet him, landing skillfully on the edge of a roof.

Demetria hits the other end of the building. "I've seen your trials," she remarks, loosening her hold on her weapons. "I wonder… if I ripped out your heart, would you grow a new one?"

Eren lunges for her with an exerting shout, but she throws her hilts, blades detaching and rocketing in his direction with such blinding speed he doesn't realize he is hit in his thigh and upper arm, piercing through layers of muscle and flesh; she lands on the roof below them and he makes a move to follow suit, but his weakened leg gives out – his body drops into the ceramic shingles like a limp sandbag, pain searing through the gashes as blood spills out like a busted dam.

"Fuck," he hisses, tearing the massive blades from his body; his wounds smoke as they burn shut.

"Your friends really do suck at this, Hange," Demetria remarks aloud, "it's no surprise humanity is almost extinct." Somewhere in the back of her mind she can hear Hange sobbing, pleading for this nightmare to end and screaming as she fails to reconnect with her body.

_"Please stop! Don't hurt them!"_

_"But why, Zoe? Don't you like it when I destroy things? Don't you just **love**  to dissect and dismember?"_

Demetria reflexively cartwheels out of the way when Nanaba descends, blades scraping against the roofing where she had been only a split moment prior.

The blonde rises to her feet, sheathing her swords and raising her fists in front of her face. "I've never been very adept at using my blades," she states, gently dragging one foot around to rest behind the other, "but then again, you've never been adept at fighting."

Demetria chuckles grimly. "I remember you. You elbowed poor Zoe in the face during her first combat training session all those years ago!" Her fingers curl into loose fists, resounding with a mild cracking. They lift, one in front of her, one at her side. "She loved to piss me off and hold back. But I'm not so forgiving"—they step towards each other, figures tensing as the anticipation sinks in—"and I'm certainly much more competent."

Nanaba moves first, arms snapping out with lightning speed, and Demetria just barely manages to weave out of the strikes. She grabs the opposing woman's arm and reels her elbow back, nailing the soldier in the nose. The blonde stumbles, finger touching the trickle of blood dripping down her lips.

"One for one," Demetria avows, shoving her away and sliding dual daggers from the rear of her belt. "Now get serious. It won't be any fun to gut a fish that didn't flail around on the hook first!"

Nanaba is suddenly much,  _much_  faster than before – Demetria can only block the first few punches in the midst of returning the blows, daggers leaving thin cuts along Nanaba's cheek, chest and stomach, before she takes an uppercut to the torso and chin; Nanaba grabs her face and kicks out her legs, shoving her to the tier with enough force that the back of her skull emits this sickening  _snap_.

Something within Demetria flickers. She squirms, suddenly, groaning as pain registers in her mind. "Sh-shit… What the hell was that for, Nana?"

_Only one person has ever called me by that name_. Nanaba kneels down, gentle grasp finding her friend's shoulders. "Hange?"

"Yeah… ah, shit, yeah it's me." She lets the opposing woman help her to her feet, palm to her throbbing forehead and the other grasping her tightening chest. "What happened? I only remember… I only remember…"

"It's okay," Nanaba mutters, hands gradually moving up to Hange's collarbone to dab at the blood soaking into her shirt from her face. "It's okay now… It'll all be over soon." Her fingers suddenly clench down on Hange's windpipe, nails biting into her tender flesh and sapphire eyes clouded with the adrenaline of the kill.

"N-Nanaba?!" Hanji squeaks, prying at the hands tightening around her throat.

"It's okay," she reiterates, but with less compassion this time. "Hanji would want me to kill you." _Only one person has ever called me by that name, and it has **never**  been Hanji Zoe. _"So just relax and it'll be all over soon."

The daggers stab in her direction, but she drops the woman just in time to move out of the way. "So you're smarter than I thought," Demetria concludes with a smirk, twirling her blades along her fingers. "You're fun! I'll kill you slowly."

Mikasa appears behind her in a blur, locking her knees around Demetria's head and flipping back with just enough strength to throw her over the edge of the building. Erwin slams into her from below just as she thrusts her daggers at him, pinning her to the wall with one sword wedged in her chest next to her heart, nailing her to the thick wooden surface, and the other in her opposing shoulder. Erwin grits his teeth as the cutlasses dig deeper into his hips.

"Well if it isn't our adoptive father," Demetria seethes, but by her lack of a snide grin he knows she's in pain. "You put a sword through Daddy's throat and had the audacity to be his replacement. It's been such a long time."

Erwin moves the blade in her shoulder around in a small circle, slicing through tendons with ease. She cries out briefly. "I want you to give her back," he demands with a voice laced with poison. He's never looked so intimidating in his life. "Do you fucking understand me?  ** _Now!"_**

"Why should I?" she purrs and knees him in the lowest wound, digging the blade deeper into his muscle. He tears his swords from her body, kicking off the wall and zip-lining to the opposing one. She hits the ground, crouching low so her knees absorb most of the shock.

Levi grapples her by her neck, twisting his body down and slamming her into the pavement with him. She's too destroyed to move and lets him pin her good arm down with his shin. "You've become a real fucking annoyance," he hisses, sliding one dagger from her loosened grip. The cool metal presses against the pulse point of her neck. "You're done, Demetria. Get lost."

"Done?" She muses, gradually letting her head roll back and her eyelids flutter shut. "Oh, for now… but I'll be seeing you again, Levi, even if it takes another ten years." She settles against the cobblestone path and lets unconsciousness overwhelm her.

Levi hits the ground a moment later, and then everything is quiet.

 

* * *

 

 

Hange stirs only briefly when the shouting in her ears becomes too overbearing; the chaos in her mind is intense like a hurricane, a shrieking whirlwind of memories glazed with liquid red, and she glances over at the mass of bodies surrounding the infirmary bed to her right. Pain rockets up like fire from her sore and mutilated body as she forces her limbs, like lead, to move.

"We're losing him!"

"He's lost too much blood! He won't make it!"

She peers through the shadowed figures to see the hands pressing down on Levi, his form matted with grime and blood. Her fingers reach out to him. "L-Levi…" A shadow blocks her view, familiar, calloused hands taking hers. "N-no… I have to… L-Levi…  ** _Levi!"_**

"Hange, it's okay… look at me."

She tries, but her gaze is blurring and darkness is creeping into her vision.

"I don't have a pulse!"

_Demetria –_

The darkness consumes her like a sudden sleep, and the cackling of her insanity creates a sickening song that soothes her into the obsidian void of her mind.

_"I can't find a pulse!"_

_– what have you done?_


	6. Chapter 6

  

The hill arches up above the rolling valley brimming with hundreds of acres of wheat, its peak curling outwards to cast a shadow on the lands beneath it, blanket of grass blades shaking in the intense breeze. Erwin's raw scars burn immensely beneath his clothes as Hange guides him up the steep slope, good arm hooked in his, youthful energy brimming through her veins with disregard for his own age.

 ** _Way_** _too much energy for her own good,_ Erwin tells himself, frowning when she abruptly releases him.

Hange is still a mess after that mission – one arm in a sling of bandages, stitched facial scar swelled black with irritation, wounds beneath her uniform still raw as his – but it doesn't stop her. Erwin is glad it doesn't.

The tombstone is charcoal gray and engraved with bold letters. Hanji has a bouquet of wildflowers shoved into the crevice of her sling and chest; she tugs it free and kneels at the head of the grave, placing it up against the stone.

Erwin stands several feet back, watching as she brings her hands together and bows her head as if to pray, or at the very least, with good intention.  _I'm sorry,_ he thinks empathetically, moving forward to grip her shoulder,  _this never should have happened. You shouldn't be suffering so much. I should have been there for you, more than your father could have ever been. I should have taken care of you… and maybe none of this would have happened._ She moves her fingers to touch his.  _I know. It's too late for me to fix this. Your father started it and I failed to end it. And now…_

Hange runs her palm over the engraved lettering, soft sigh escaping her lips. "I miss him," she admits as she balls her good hand into a loose fist. "I… I miss him so much… I didn't think I ever would…" The scientist rises from her knees, using Erwin's gestured out arm as support. "I miss my mother too. I know Dad never hurt her, never hurt  _me_  – but I won't ever forgive him for what he did."

Erwin casts his gaze down to the tombstone. "And you still miss them all the same."

"I do," she agrees quietly, almost shamefully and to herself. They stand in silence for a moment, her staring despondently at her parents' shared tombstone and him looking off into the distance. "Hey, Erwin?" She chirps, craning her head up to look at him quizzically, "are they going to bury my body here too? Or am I going to be cremated like everyone else?"

Erwin abruptly remembers the briefing he had held with Levi the evening prior and his heart sinks into his stomach. "It's time to go," he interjects, forcing her to turn away from the grave with him.

Hanji doesn't seem to notice his piqued level of insistency and submissively declines her head against her chest to gaze at the wildflower crushed beneath the sole of her boot. "Yeah, let's get back… I think I forgot to say good morning to Elroy."

Erwin arches his eyebrow. "It's still alive?"

"Of course! I'm the one taking care of him!"

"…That's why I thought otherwise."

Hanji immediately breaks into an essay-long report about the 9-meter class Titan pinned down at headquarters, and Erwin remains silent the whole way back.

 

* * *

 

 

Erwin's office is cleaner now that it's no longer obscured with dust (courtesy of Levi, who refused to stay in his recovery room knowing the untidy condition of the office) and he organized and filed and swept up his papers from the spring recruitment contracts. "I'm going to take Mikasa Ackerman out from under your wing until the time being," he remarks, laying his jacket over the back of his chair, "now that we can trust her to act more rationally when it comes to her brother and her other priorities."

Levi scoffs at that. He's been stuck taking the two brats wherever he went after Mikasa threatened to kill him if he did anything without her consent (Levi figures she's still bitter over the courtroom smack-down he administered to get Eren onto the Legion. Even knowing this, however, the girl seethes at him all the same). "Finally. I'm a bit tired of having so many extras in my group."

The Commander is leaning against the wall to keep some weight off his hips as he slides open an envelope to check the contents, but deciding that it's useless to him at the moment he places it in the top drawer of his desk.

"But that's not all you called me in for, is it?"

He says it more like a fact than a question, and Erwin can't deny the unusual suspicious tone tucked away somewhere underneath.

Levi sits in a chair propped up next to the window, his chin recumbent on his fist, elbow on the windowsill and one leg folded over the other. His obsidian gaze is fixated on the activity outside, where he can see Hange with Eren and her squad. She's gesturing to him and then to Elroy who had been moved out into the fields following the compromising execution of Sawny and Bean.  _Probably wants them to communicate,_ Levi figures.

Erwin turns his attention elsewhere to avoid looking at him. "It seems someone reopened Hange's case file and brought it to my superiors' attention."

"…I see," is all Levi responds with.

"And after your near-death experience, I can't exactly say I was inclined to agree with just ignoring the situation." Erwin lowers himself into his desk chair, the wounds in his torso complaining against his shifting weight. "I received a letter about the files and was asked to explain myself for letting Hange operate out of my sight. They know about what's been going on."

"You mean they know everything?"

"They knew everything before they could demand I tell them." The Commander rifles through the papers on his desk and picks up a discarded letter, tri-folded almost perfectly, the stamp of the government split open. "Despite my best plea for Hanji's life, there's been a kill order issued—"

"Erwin-"

"—she is to be arrested and brought to trial, and due to the danger she imposes upon her fellow soldiers, she will be publicly executed on the first Thursday of July after our mission to Wall Maria."

Levi presses his lips into a thin line. In the background a massive  _ka_ - ** _boom_  **shakes the foundation of the floor and rattles the windows, and out of the corner of his eye he observes Hange dancing some maniacal routine over Eren turning into a Titan.

"Don't they know she's the only suicidal scientist within all the Walls who willing wants to experiment on Titans? They won't ever get the kind of information she offers. They're not thinking this through. And what happened with the Military Police has nothing to do-"

"I know that, but they also know that. You must not let this happen." There is something in Erwin's tone that unnerves Levi – it is besmirched with a broken desperation, grim and almost pleading, so uncharacteristic of the Scouting Legion Commander that Levi isn't even sure he's talking to the right person anymore. A chill nestles into his spine and gradually inches down, crawling like a raking of skeletal fingers. "We have to get rid of Demetria and prove Hange's sanity at her appeal trial."

"And how do you expect me to do that, exactly?"

"We start with the main problem."

Something shuffles outside the door. Erwin casts his gaze to the shadow fanning out along the crack of the division, gliding from right to left as a figure passes far too close to the room for Erwin's liking. He waits peevishly for the echo of boots to resound down the hall and completely fade before he meets Levi's stare, humorless orbs mirroring the drained waters in his own.

"There's a traitor in the Scouting Legion, Levi.  _Find them_."

 

* * *

 

 

The new moon is up that night and everything is darker than normal.  _Dark,_  she thinks to herself as she contemplates blowing out the single lit candle several inches away,  _so dark, jet black, and cold._ There is a wooden hiss as the blade slides along the desk top.

_"So they took you off the mission."_

"Don't bring it up," she whispers, glaring down into the handheld mirror on the table top, her gruesome reflection parallel to her familiar, twisted smirk, the contours of her insanity etched into every muscle of her face. She realizes the sinister smirk is fading as she glides the dagger over her exposed thigh, outlining jagged scars that run from her knee to the hem of her undershorts.  _Nothing new. Nothing new…_ "It's been a month now… I'd rather not talk about it."

_"Is it my fault?"_

"Yes."

_"Everything's my fault, isn't it?"_

"Most things."

_"You know… it can all be over."_

"You've said so before," she whispers, the cool metal running along the length of her jugular, where she knows one clean cut would end it all. Quickly.

_"Very little pain, no screaming, no suffering… no time for regrets…"_

She hates that her thoughts are not only hers. "I have many regrets already."

_"So this will put an end to them all."_

She feels something genuine ignite through her blood and she reflexively digs the tip of the blade into the pressure point at the side of her leg. Her scream falls mute on her own ears; the pain explodes like lightning through her nerves, igniting her body with searing fires intense enough that she immediately withdraws the cutlass and works at wiping off the blood to distract herself.

A few seconds later – nearly seven whole minutes in reality – she recovers from her berserk flipmode, straining her ringing ears to the sound of heavy footsteps drawing towards her door.

 _"It's locked,"_ Demetria muses as the door rattles uselessly.

"Hange?" Levi remarks, knuckles tapping on the division sealed into the frame. "Hange, are you in there?"

"Go away," she calls back, her voice barely audible through the thick slab of wood and voided of its usual authority. She glares down at her hands, sticky with blood that has dried between the lines in her palms… and realizes there are fresh gashes running the length of her upper arms, exposed by her undershirt that is soaking through her running blood, and the other leg is littered with minor cuts.  _When did I do that?_

"Hey, Four Eyes, open this fucking door."

She shudders at Levi's typical use of foul language and pulls herself up out of her chair, limping towards the door. Pain bursts through her body and into her head –  _no,_ she hisses into her own mind, sticky fingers curling around the lock and snapping it open. It's always locked now, like her window, so she can't sleep walk out again.  _No, fuck._  She's losing consciousness. She shouldn't have moved.

The door swings open just as she just barely manages to step out of the way.

Levi's obsidian gaze injects pinpricks of poison into her system, judgmental, cruel, disheartening, whisking up and down her body as he grazes over every newly inflicted injury. His natural instinct is to carry her off to the infirmary, but when she shakes her head at him – almost as if reading his mind – he instead steps in after her, drawing up close enough that their chests brush, and swings the door closed behind him. "May I come in?" he quips a moment later, even though any sense of humor he could have ever possibly possessed vanished long before she met him.

"No doctor," she says decidedly, "not this time."

"So you're just going to bleed to death?"

"Kit's in the bottom drawer," she mutters, gesturing to her desk. She limps over to her bed and carefully sets herself down; she observes the man from her peripheral vision as he rifles through her papers. "I didn't mean to," she whispers, memories gradually bubbling to the surface of her brain, "I just didn't want to hurt you anymore…" She gives him a weak laugh. "I even wrote a letter and everything… I wasn't going to suffer, I swear, it would be over quick."

Levi perches on the bed beside her, setting the kit on his lap as she adjusts herself to face him, exhaling a shaky breath. Her blood stains her sheets. "If you're going to off yourself just do me the favor already. Enough with"—he turns his dejected glare to her body as a whole, eyeing the oozing wounds—" _this_."

Her hand slides up around his neck. "I just didn't want to hurt you anymore…"

He passively slaps her wrist down and threads the surgical string through the needle. "This is going to hurt like a bitch," he mutters, uncapping the bottle of alcohol.

"But what if Deme-?"

"Then I'll deal with her. Just take a fucking drink."

She takes a swig, lets it trail fire down her throat, and follows through with another hit. He accepts back the bottle and, pressing his finger tip to partially cover the neck, sloshes it across her thigh. She yelps, quickly digs her fists into the comforter and stills. After a beat she gives him another weary laugh, hollowed of emotion and brimming with exasperation. "Oh, Levi, are you getting your hands  _dirty_?"

"Put a cork in it," he coerces, spreading drops across his palm and slapping it against her first upper arm. Her legs will heal fine in a few days, these will not. He jabs the needle through the first flap of open skin, the jagged edges already swelled with irritation. Hanji pretends she doesn't register the pain as the alcohol numbs her system, nothing as intense as being tipsy on so few drinks, but there's also not much blood left to pump through her system and break the fluids down as quickly. "I'll be sure you don't get permission to interact with your precious Titan as payment later."

Hanji whines in her throat. "Eren ate him today, don't you know… He had a bit of a breakdown when he turned." It comes as no surprise that she lost another Titan, even if it was Eren's fault.

"Let me focus, will you?" he demands over an exasperated sigh. She falls into a placid silence and turns her cerise eyes to the shadows on the wall, possibly to recede within her own mind, or to remember whatever memories made her happiest.

The system is corrupt from the roots up, and Levi is keenly aware of that. As his last month's briefing with Erwin reels around in the back of his head he can only curse under his breath at all those idiots with the collective intelligence of a brick, languidly poised on their government thrones like they're entitled to spitting on the populace and starving out the masses of Maria survivors in the Under City. There's nothing Levi can do about that, no matter how desperately he wishes he could, but he'll be  _damned_ if he doesn't defend Hanji from her obligatory kismet.

 _It isn't her fault her father was the fucking River Town Ripper_. His mind abruptly begins replaying the briefing he had held with Erwin only a few hours prior.

_Replay._

_"There's been a kill order issued…"_

_Replay._

_"…she will be publicly executed…"_

_Replay._

_"You must not let this happen."_

**_Stop_ ** _._

How in all seven levels of hell is he supposed to get her out of this? They would have to convince them of her sanity at the appeal trial as a baseline minimum… but Demetria can consume her at any time. There were no guarantees unless Hange were to either miraculously conquer her other half or off herself when no one was looking, just as she's tried doing multiple times already. Levi hopes it is the former Hange figures out before it is too late.  _She's not a coward; she will face this head on, just as she always has –_

Looking at her now, however, he realizes she is keenly aware of her options, and she will gladly choose the latter.

  

* * *

 

  

When she's finally stitched up he forces her to take a bath with him to rid them both of the crusted blood that has dried along her wounds and under his nails, and he gets a solid look at her body for the first time in weeks – her body is besmirched by scars under her arms, on her hands, on her thighs, running along her torso and crossing on her shoulders. Some are faded like memories past, he thinks they are the ones from their trainee days, and others are burns from the straps of her gear.

He thinks she isn't pristine like the way he likes everything to be, and he's fine with that. But the wound on her face – though not completely healed but no longer swelled or raw – is just an ugly, jagged…  _thing_ , its existence as unkempt as dirt, and it irks his anger but he keeps his lips sealed.

He helps bandage her up before they're both on her bed again, her head on his chest out of the way of his still healing scars, and his face turned to gaze out the window absently. "I thought I lost you," she whispers, tracing her nail along the depressions of his shirt outlining the muscles defining his torso. His shackles raise and his skin prickles at the sensation, something similar to the danger in Demetria's voice, parallel to the fear of giving up his men to Titans. "And I feel like I'm losing you every time you walk out that door."

He scoffs humorlessly at that.

"I just want you to stay. I feel safer this way…"

The arm folded behind his head is playing with the dog tags he always keeps around his neck, hidden beneath his cravat.  _I'd like to think I could keep you safe, but that's what I told them, on that day…_

"Is that selfish of me?"

"No," he says tonelessly.

Her nails pause over the wound in his chest and she kneads into the tender flesh, firm but not hard. "I can feel the insanity within me, Levi. It's there at every moment of the waking day, in my mind and in my speech and in my heart… I realize now it's not getting stronger – I'm just getting much, much weaker. It scares me: the realization that I'm losing to it, giving in so easily after I've been fighting it for so long."

 _It scares me too,_ he wants to say.

She exhales an exacerbated sigh. "I don't want to lose  _myself_ , Levi. I'd rather die than become a monster I don't recognize. You understand, don't you?"

"Now you're being selfish," he tells her blatantly.

"I know I know, I didn't think of you or Moblit or Erwin or my future experiments and the good I can offer to humanity." She shrugs against him. "But it's nice like this – the sound of the quiet and the night and the thought of sleeping without having to wake up to another day of antagonizing insanity." Gradually she props herself up on one elbow and rests her chin on his sternum. "And, Levi?"

He hums absently in his throat.

"I'm so sorry I've done this to you."

 _"_ It's not your fault," he utters, but he knows she doesn't believe him, and he realizes now that at some point – or perhaps he's just been lying to himself since the beginning – he's stopped believing it himself.

  

* * *

 

  

_(You used to trust me. You used to trust her. Silly boy, we are one in the same.)_

****

****

**_He lied to me._ **

**_To you._ **

**_To us._ **

_Who did?_

**_Him._ **

_I don't know who you're talking about._

**_Liar._ **

**_Don't you see?_ **

**_They're going to erase us._ **

His hands shake profusely before him, fingers clenched into loose fists, and blood has dried along the lines of his palms, beneath his finger nails, is sticky like garnet glue. He doesn't think it's his. There's no immediate pain. Maybe he's okay.  _Maybe the other person isn't._

_Who is?_

**_Them._ **

**_You know who._ **

**_They've been behind us since the beginning._ **

He can't pinpoint the origin of the voice. It's so familiar to him but he can't, can't understand it. It's making no sense. There's blood on him, why is there blood on his hands? Filthy. Filthy.

_Who are you?_

**_It's me._ **

**_You know me._ **

**_I gave you that scar._ **

**_That mark._ **

**_The one that burns when I'm near._ **

**_The warning._ **

**_You can't forget me._ **

"Demetria," he seethes into the darkness. Her rebounding laughter reverberates through the still void, breaking the blackness and irking the pain in his chest into motion. He glares down at the sticky blood coating his hands, smeared across his legs, his uniform shirt, and then he presses his palms to his face, the blood is warm, still fresh. "Where am I? What have you done?"

**_I haven't done anything._ **

**_Or maybe…_ **

**_You should just see for yourself._ **

Levi's vision comes into focus. His nerves kick start into motion. It's almost like he's being released, from chains or a paralyzing state of existence, and he can breathe, he can hear the creaking of floor boards, he can taste the dampness in the air, smell something that reminds him of burnt flesh. He gradually rises from his knees, grunting as the numbness ebbs into feeling.

A basement. Light filters through the cracks in the floor above, the spokes of rays illuminating the dust  _– filthy, filthy, filthy –_  but barely bright enough to see ten feet in front of him. He waits for his eyes to adjust to the jet shadows engulfing him, but when his vision does not focus he glances around for the glint of a lamp.

_Where is this place?_

**_You know where._ **

_Then where are you?_

**_I'm in your head._ **

**_Where else would I be?_ **

He scoffs humorlessly, shuffling around, his shin ramming into the leg of a table. He curses under his breath. "It's so freaking dark. How do you expect me to see where I'm going if there's barely any light?"

As if on cue every lamp hanging from every other post ignites,  _fwoosh fwoosh fwoosh_ , flames shooting up one after another in perfect synch. The explosion of light forces his arm to snap over his eyes, shielding them from any possible harm, his retinas scalded by the abrupt change in color. The fire exposes his surroundings.

**_Do you know where you are now?_ **

**_Look._ **

**_Remember._ **

The tables to both his immediate left and right are layered in dried blood, caked in flayed segments of skin from torsos, legs, faces, human body parts,  _human_  flesh. Before him, the next four tables, decapitated and mutilated and skinned and tortured corpses, all chained down or strewn about, one chest cleaved open with every rib broken upwards like a blossoming flower, the organs within relocated to the bucket beneath it.

He wants to vomit, to scream or to run or to demand that Demetria reveal herself so he can kick the ever living shit out of her for showing this to him.

_It's just a dream._

**_A nightmare_ ** _._

_This isn't real._

**_It happened_ ** _._

_This can't be real._

**_You're remembering what you saw that day._ **

Levi backs up swiftly, slamming harmlessly into the farthest wall and rattling the chains suspended from the rusted pegs. Every lamp flickers, one after another, another bullshit delusion that hypnotizes him, irking the writhing fear within him. It agitates him, how easily this stupid dream is affecting him, even when he knows it isn't real. It could never be real, no one in their right mind would ever be capable of something like this.

_Except him._

Thundering footsteps slam down the passage of stairs above, the old oak wood screaming in protest under the massive assailant's weight, threatening to fracture and splinter like panels like fragile shards of glass.

 ** _He's coming_**.

"How?" Levi hisses but he finds himself pressing to the floor none-the-less, rolling instinctively under the work bench to his side. He keeps low on his knees, shifting the stool before him to better conceal his obvious presence, scooting back into the darkness cast beneath the table. _How is he here? He's dead! And this isn't real!_  But the more he repeats his arguments in his mind the longer the doubt lingers insistently. There's a truth in this that sets it apart from his persistent ache of brushing off the severity of the situation.

**_Stay quiet._ **

_Why are you telling me this?_

**_Do I need a reason?_ **

**_Do you want to end up a basement experiment?_ **

**_Or maybe you would prefer if Zoë killed you?_ **

**_You can go out like those two dimwitted friends of yours._ **

**_What were their names?_ **

**_Isabel?_ **

**_Farlan?_ **

**_Yes, just like them._ **

**_One broken leg,_ **

**_one broken gear line –_ **

_Shut up._

**_\- and a few unfortunately placed Titans._ **

_I said shut up, fucking bitch._

The silhouette of a man – shadowed out, every detail smeared in darkness – appears at the foot of the staircase. He grumbles incoherently before moving over to the closest table that is occupied with a body, or in this case, what's left of one. He slaps a notebook onto the table, a thick, leather-bound and worn journal, the ribbon bookmark shredded on the ends from all the years of use.

 _That looks familiar_ , Levi ponders, instinctively drawing further back when the man turns towards the work bench. He's looking for something.

**_Or someone._ **

After a beat of complete silence the man lurches forward, shuffling towards the empty shadow on the wall perpendicular to him. He whimpers pleadingly, something incoherent that falls muted to Levi's ear, like a missing piece of a puzzle, and the darkness ripples along the rigid surface in response. He speaks more firmly, declares something, again it is silent. The darkness continues to ripple.

Suddenly, the shadow whispers,  **"Anselm."**

_It's replying to him._

"Anselm Zoë," Levi mutters to himself, tasting the name on his tongue.

**_Hange's father._ **

**_Do you remember it all now, Levi?_ **

The man's head snaps over to the work bench, as if hearing the voices in the corporal's head. Levi sinks down, feeling exposed in the garnet fires of the man's glare, praying that the shadows are concealing him.  _He knows I'm here._

Anselm turns his torso, then his legs, completely facing the table. From this direct angle Levi remembers just how dangerous this man had been – six feet of pure muscle from working in the silver mine. His heavy boot steps echo out through the frigid silence of the basement room as he moves for the hidden soldier, faster, pace ascending with urgency. Levi readies himself to attack and make a break for the steps.

Anselm reaches the work bench.

He pauses.

Something shuffles above on the table top, metal scraping wood, Levi thinks. It bothers him that the noises and movements are so familiar.  _But this isn't real._

**_It used to be._ **

**_Many years ago._ **

Her voice is like a venomous honey, dripping with truth and toxic all the same, poisoning his every thought with the foreboding past he long thought he had forgotten. Demetria is right (not that Levi would ever dare admit that out loud). He's been here before. He's remembering it all, detail for detail, even though he convinced himself that the suppressed memory would never resurface again.

Anselm gyrates around, gradually, torso first again, and as he shambles off for the tables the dull sheen of the meat cleaver in his grasp reflects off the dim light from above.

Levi studies the man as he stripes his coat and opts for an apron suspended from a peg on the wall, the same material and brand the bakers around the main square use to keep from dirtying the front of their clothes. It's so human of him Levi almost laughs.

Anselm turns to the shadow again, says something incoherent, and moves to the armless body at the nearest table.

He lists the cleaver above his head.

It swings down, sinking deep and precise into the leg.

Levi can hear the shredding of skin and breaking of bones, wet and sloppy and thick, the copper sheen of dried blood distracting his gaze. He stares blankly at Anselm raising the cleaver, bringing it down,  ** _thwack_** , into the tender flesh of a thigh.

_I remember when this happened._

**_You hid under the table._ **

**_Just like now._ **

**_Coward._ **

_I was a child._

**_A stupid brat._ **

**_Foolish and scared._ **

Levi's gradually curling up on his side, palms pressing to cover his ears, the remnants of fear he has always reluctantly held on to ebbing into shock and weariness. Then everything falls into a sullen darkness, the empty void of his mind, soothed by the lullaby of Demetria's sadistic laughter in the back of his head and the sickening crunches vibrating through his every bone.

He waits, he watches, he remembers.  _He relives_.

_This isn't real._

**_Oh, Levi._ **

**_At what point in your life_ ** **_did this ever stop being real?_ **

 

* * *

 

 

Erwin is staring out his window, observing a handful of soldiers taking their evening break on the stone benches of the courtyard, when he hears his office door slam shut.

The difference between Levi storming in and someone else entering is that Levi doesn't  _knock_ , Sina forbid he ever had the common courtesy, and it gives him a jump scare so intense he thinks he's actually shook hands with his father at some point – so by the lack of an immediate warning he assumes it's everyone's favorite role model. But then a forlorn sense of dread leaks down his spine like dripping acids, or skeletal fingers raking down vertebrae for vertebrae, tracing every notch in his tensing back.

It isn't Levi _. There's something here._

In the reflection of the transparent pane he can see Hange. Her expression is blank, but the enlarged shadow cast on the wall behind her is taking a life of its own, twisting sideways so he can see the wide grin and rows of jagged teeth. It looks like it's  _laughing_.

He gradually turns to face her, to face that  _thing_. The distraught commander grits his teeth when he realizes they are one in the same.

"No more excuses, Erwin," Hange hisses through grit teeth, slamming the lock into place. "No more protecting me. No more  _games_. Tell me who Demetria really is!" She slides the dagger out from the back of her belt, her fist tightening around the hilt bit by bit for every dangerous step she takes towards him, until her knuckles are bleeding white and the crimson fires in her eyes have turned into an inferno.

 _"Tell her, tell her, tell her!"_ The shadow chants hysterically, as if amused by the pressure gravitating towards him, clawed hands turning up to scratch the brick face of the walls. " _Little Zoë wants to know! Give her the truth, gives her your lies, it's always been so difficult to tell the two apart!"_

He tilts his head back as the blade presses against the expanse of his pulse point.  _Calm down,_ he tells himself, arcing his neck up in futile escape from her blade,  _don't let her see you falter._  "Hange-" he starts.

"I found my father's notebook in the evidence archives!"

"You don't have the authority to go down there, how did you-?"

"It doesn't matter. All that matters is you telling me everything that happened that night." She twists the hilt, slicing a barely noticeable wound into his neck. The droplet of blood races down, soaking into the pristine collar of his shirt. "And don't you  _dare_  lie to me again!"

His sky-fallen gaze wearily casts down to observe the cutlass, before skimming the length of her scarred arm up to her face. Finally his glare turns to the distorted shadow, still grinning, the scritch-scratching of its claws ceasing in turn. "If the truth is what you want, I hope you're ready for the consequences."

 _"You won't even believe him,"_ the shadow, Demetria, remarks snidely.

Hange grits her teeth but refrains from making a comeback. She refuses to entertain that… _thing_. She withdraws her blade, decidedly pacing back to the other side of the room. She saunters aimlessly in circles on an almost perfect figure eight, tapping the tip of the dagger blade against her temple rhythmically, rapidly, as if giving her thoughts a railway so she can focus.

 _"Daddy's going to lie to you again,"_  Demetria quips as she shifts along the wall to the adjacent one.  _"You can't trust him!"_

"Shut the fuck up!" Hange screams and throws her dagger with almost perfect precision so the blade slams into the center of the shadow's forehead. The cutlass reflects harmlessly off the wall and rattles loudly as it impacts the floor hilt first. "He's not my father!"

 _"But can you trust him_?" Demetria whispers, her hands extending from the dimensional shadow, forming into the metallic claws that could easily slice them both down in a single swipe. Hange's pupils dilate, fixated on the mesmerizing darkness swirling at the exit points of the forming arms, long and slender with obsidian bone shards layering the forearms and backs of the hands.

Erwin doesn't know what he's witnessing.  _He doesn't remember how to move._ He just stands there, poised behind his desk, watching the event unfold before him and wondering, by Hange's stoic reaction, just how many times this has happened before.

Erwin Smith has never been afraid. Not like this.  **Never like this**.

Blackness is leaking from the flesh-less muscle, like infected blood, dripping across the hard wood floor. It slides from the claws. Drips from the rising teeth. An extra pair of eyes split open at the forehead where the jagged horns are peaking through, arcing up and back over the skull, outwards from the base of her head.  _"Can you trust him, after all the secrets he's hid from you…? Can you trust him, when he's never had the heart to even tell Levi?"_

Hange lets the clawed fingers wrap around her gently, not hard but possessively. "I have to trust him," the scientist utters under her breath, "he knows the truth. And  _you_  obviously won't tell me."

Demetria laughs – maniacally, the insanity woven into her voice unraveling and threading through the air, emitting jolts of pain through the back of Erwin's skull. He winces but refuses to show the monster that she's actually affecting him _. "Daddy knows best!"_

"Fine," Erwin says decidedly, and Hange turns her gaze to him. "If that's what you want, I'll start from the beginning…"

 

* * *

 

 

There's a knock on his office door and Levi glances up from his paper work, startled from his slumber by the acute sound. The quill is dry against the paper and he dunks it into the ink vile, checking his hands and sleeves for marks before clawing the weariness from his eyes.  _A nightmare,_ he tells himself as the remnants of the dream scatter to clear his head.  _It was just a stupid nightmare._

_"He lied to me. To you. To us."_

He pauses, pondering Demetria's words.  _What the fuck does that even mean?_

Another knock. "Levi!" Hange exclaims, "I'm coming in!"

_Oh, great._

He thinks he needs more time to recover from his nightmare and considers telling her to fuck off elsewhere, but she's already let herself in, kicking the door shut with the thick of her heel. She throws herself into an immediate hug, one armed because she's grasping a satchel in the other hand, humming into his shoulder with some hopeless giddiness. "Are you alright?" he questions, not bothering to return the hug, and when she gets her fill she draws back.

"Of course. Something wrong?"

"No, you just seem…" He wafts his hand at her absently. "Never mind. What's in the bag?"

"This was outside your bedroom," she chirps as she holds up the leather medical satchel, dropping it onto his desk top with an acute  _thunk_. Whatever is in the bag is solid. "You didn't see it so I just brought it to you!"

"From who?" he asks quizzically (suspiciously), cautiously unfastening the zipper, tugging it down notch for notch. In the upper field of his peripheral vision he watches Hanji perch in his chair, folding her arms over the back and crossing one leg over the other. She's waiting. Observing. Her garnet eyes are flashing with the flickering candle light as she ponders, waits, lips gradually twitching up into a menacing grin. She doesn't even answer his question.

_Who's it from, Hange?_

He pushes the leather walls apart with his palms –

"A present from Demetria," Hange whispers, but her voice is resounding like a crash of thunder through the room that strikes Levi with the intensity of a careening boulder – like being smashed with a Titan fist or crushed by jagged, crooked jaws. ** _Horrifying_**.  _"Because the self-righteous bastard lied to us."_

Levi jumps back, tripping over his chair and slamming back-first into the wall, cowering away from the contents of the bag as it rocks towards the edge of his desk, balance disturbed by his abrupt movements.

The satchel's contents tumble out –

_No._

**_NO!_ **

-and Erwin Smith's severed head hits the floor.

  


End file.
